Wash Your Hands Before Investing

Sometimes being rich can be a disadvantage. It’s easier to exploit people when big egos are involved.  This is true in both medicine and investing. For most of recorded history, doctors and surgeons did not wash their hands before treating patients.  In 1847, a Hungarian physician named Ignaz Semmelweis was widely ridiculed for trying to…

It’s Monday Again…..When Is My Retirement

This week’s retirement links are out. Stop working for the clampdown and start enjoying your life. It’s worth it to spend your retirement money on these things. Financial Samaurai Most financial commercials are a bunch of crap. Forbes Read this before you purchase an annuity. Braganca Law Long-term care may be an illusion. CNBC This…

Investment Mistakes Are the Portals of Discovery

Fancy Wall Street types often use the term “price discovery” when they are trying too hard to impress the impressionable. “Price discovery is the mechanism by which competing buyers and sellers determine the price of a security or an asset,” according to Simon Constable. For this process to work, certain things must happen. “I see…

A Goon Squad Of Charlatans, False Prophets and Mercenaries

ONLY 6.6% of financial advisors practice true wealth management. What in God’s name do the other 93.4% do? This is according to a study conducted by CEG Worldwide. (No relation to Prestige Worldwide, though many people have portfolios that could have been created by the Step Brothers.) Who is steering your financial boat?  It turns, more…

It’s Monday Again…..When Is My Retirement?

Our weekly retirement links are out. Remember knowledge is not power unless you apply what you have learned. 401(k) lawsuits may be working. InvestmentNews Is Long Term Care Insurance a scam? The Wall Street Journal Banks need to do more to stop financial abuse against older Americans. Bloomberg Caregivers may be jeopardizing their own retirements.  CNBC…

These Are Like, Really Bad Funds

Is $1.3 trillion invested in the investment-equivalent of dog crap? Yes; and we are not talking about manure farm I.P.O.s. This money rots in high-fee, low-performing mutual funds hawked by conflicted financial salespeople.  More than 8% of industry assets remains in the two priciest quintiles of annual fees, according to Morningstar Direct. Where is this…

The Power of Fee Shaming

  “If you don’t cheat, you look like an idiot; if you cheat and don’t get caught, you look like a hero; if you cheat and get caught, you look like a dope. Put me where I belong.”  – Darrel Waltrip, NASCAR Racer This sums up the choices in the sordid world of conflicted financial…

It’s Monday Again…..When Is My Retirement?

Here are this weeks retirement links. If you hate your job, it’s doubly important that you read them. Can you create your own pension? MarketWatch Is Donald Trump an advocate for the ‘Fiduciary Rule.” Wall Street Journal New Jersey is coming out with its own Fiduciary Rule. InvestmentNews Combining retirement and college savings can be difficult. USA…

Fewer Pieces + Better Construction = Sound Investing

Less is more is a great investing strategy. Conflicts of interests, sales pitches, and fees are a feature, not a bug, in financial services.  To change this we need to learn a thing or two from successful tech companies. Professor Scott Galloway discusses this in his brilliant book, The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon,…

Will Wealth Inequality Slay the Bull Market?

  Some believe wealth inequality combined with its resulting populism could finally kill the rampaging bull. Many investors ignore this at their own peril as they scan short-term quarterly earnings reports and weekly economic figures.  They may be missing seeing the forest through the trees. Revolution is the ultimate Black Swan. Thirty percent of U.S….