Anthony Isola

You Can Learn To Grow Money In Your Garden

My favorite hobby is gardening, and much of what I know about plants I learned through trial and error. I’m also a Certified Financial Planner, and that’s helped me recognize the many parallels between growing your garden and growing your money. Gardening teaches valuable lessons about wealth management. You see the importance of patience, cost…

Osama Bin Laden Would Have Been An Awful Investor

Osama Bin Laden’s personality traits made him a detestable human being. He most likely would have been an atrocious investor if he would have gravitated toward the field of finance instead of mass murder. Bin Laden constantly sought the reaffirmation of his crazed beliefs. This eventually sealed his fate. This is not unlike the poor…

5 Things You Can Learn about Investing From Mad Max

Financial markets can sometimes resemble an apocalyptic wasteland teeming with the unknown and danger. To survive you must have courage, common sense, and the ability to keep cool under heat. Mad Max A.K.A., “The Road Warrior,” has many of the qualities of a successful investor that you would be wise to emulate. In honor of…

Confessions of a Stock Market Game Winner

The way the current Stock Market Game is constructed does more harm than good. Winning teams are rewarded for concentrated portfolios, excess leverage, and short-term reactive behaviors. Winners are determined by chance, since many of the games only last for 10-15 weeks. The bigger danger lies in the fact the victorious teams may actually think…

What Does It Take To Be A “Barron’s Advisor”? Pay the Fee!

Imagine if you won the lottery. The only thing that could curb your enthusiasm would be a “prize collection fee.” This scam is very rampant among the geriatric set and e-mail notifications from Nigeria. The cost of the ticket was the entry fee. Any additional monetary layout is a sure sign of some form of…

3 Reasons Why Companies Should Invest in Workers And Not in Their Stock

Too many CEOs are focused on short-term stock gains rather than on long-term sustainability for their companies and the economy as a whole. This is a major factor in two of our country’s largest economic problems: low wages and wealth inequality. As Rex Nutting pointed out in his article “How the Stock Market Destroyed the…

You Should Ignore Investment Advice From These 6 People

Not acting like an idiot is a huge component for successful investing. Trying to create the perfect investment strategy or being blessed with an off-the-charts I.Q. are often liabilities for the individual investor. Charlie Munger, Warren Buffet’s chief lieutenant sums this up perfectly: “It’s not brilliance, it’s just avoiding stupidity.” Regarding stupid behavior he remarked,…

Bull Market “Febezzlers” Riding High — For Now

Bull markets often hide very shady practices, as investors found out all too well when the economy imploded in 2008 and all the malfeasance of the financial services industry rose to the surface. It doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to predict that some ugly truths will be unveiled when this bull market eventually…