A Monk Who Left the Monastery to Fix Broken Retirement Plans
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I went straight to being a financial advisor right out of undergrad. Instead of going to the big city, I went back to my hometown to fix people's retirement plans.
(I sold insurance, investments, financial planning, and advice services. Then I managed other people's money as I went back to school, spending a year in a Finance PhD program then doing my MBA instead. Now I'm a developer in finance.)
There are a lot of good-hearted people out there trying to fix people's retirement plans. I imagine most of them are quite envious of this guy's free press.
The leading industry certification is Certified Financial Planner (CFP). There are others. (I'm studying for the Chartered Financial Analyst, CFA, designation, which is more generally about analyzing and managing investments.)
We do need more people to pay attention to their financial planning. I think our economy will become stronger if more people would save more, spend less, and invest in things that last and grow.
> So you should hire an adviser not for his or her investing prowess, but to help organize your finances, prioritize your goals, minimize your taxes, and navigate the shoals of retirement and estate planning. Done right, those services can make you far richer — and happier — than the pipe dream of investment outperformance is likely to.
Now that the index revolution has solidified, I think there's going to be a strong market for financial advisors that just offer advice in the coming years.
[1]: https://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2017/06/09/dont-touch-my-mon... (yes, sorry, behind a paywall)
People will have a slow awakening.
It relies on population growth, but for the US that's a fine bet.
It would not work in Japan.
That's the basic formula for retirement saving in a nutshell. I'd wager that most people grasp the logic of this formula at a basic level without a formal education in investing, or needing to pay for a financial advisor.
What people (myself included) lack is the discipline to save more + spend less, and the accounting skills + access to information required to make informed investment decisions and to create/manage balanced portfolios.
The rise of the index fund has been helpful...but investing is still an extremely opaque process at best. One of the more recent examples is the death of the intuitive link between "buy low, sell high" AKA "value investing"[1] that has a bunch of GS investors scratching their heads. If this basic economic link starts to break down...how can people with already limited financial knowledge make smart investment decisions? Or is buying the index really the way forward, until another market correction?
Are you seeing any interesting companies in the space that are working on solving these basic problems, or working in this space yourself? As a 24 year old I'd be interested to hear how the industry is evolving to accommodate younger investors that are just starting out on the retirement path.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-08/goldman-s...
Assuming you aren't outright dirt poor, none of this requires serious discipline or accounting skills or even diversification. You can buy stocks in blue chip companies and set up a DRIP. Between the DRIP and stock splits, over time, your nest egg grows. People who want to invest often use tricks to make the money less accessible to themselves so that when they are feeling like accessing it and blowing it for some reason, there is a built in cooling off period. (A la the "put your credit cards in the freezer" type suggestions.)
People who invest are people who choose to invest. You learn about investing by doing it and by reading relevant news publications, like the Wall Street Journal.
They bought WorldCom, Enron, Sears, Northern Telecom, and many others.
It does require work and significant knowledge.
And generally speaking, you will learn very little about things like asset allocation, correlations, or liquidity analysis from the WSJ.
I'd recommend following Dave Ramsey for a awhile before doing anything. Way too many people want to jump into the deep end before making sure they even have their bathing suit on.
True fiduciary duty with being read in A Random Walk are not common in your average CFP, insurance broker, or finance graduate.
The classes were informative, and covered a lot of things I hadn't taken into account for retirement. So I recommend them highly... as is said in the article above, many people are lazy about preparing. It's worth fixing that now, wherever you are with respect to retirement.
It's often fairly specific though. Which is why it's not much good hearing what someone else got out of it.
I hope Mr. Lynam is also honest with his clients about the big picture. Developed countries have stagnant productivity growth and falling populations. There is no way everyone can squeeze a comfortable retirement from that stone. For many people at this late stage in the game all they can do is reduce their expectations.
Brilliant!
Other studies have shown a strong inverse relationship between financial success and belief in religion.
Please let me zoom your articles on my Android tablet, my eyes aren't what they used to be.
Thx