I was hoping someone else would be the one to say this, but you haven’t identified the reason you lost your money and you are on track to do it again. You are currently not a good investor. It is not because of RB, or Saul, it is because you don’t know enough about the subject or don’t have sufficient aptitude for it. And I don’t think you have learned humility in the process, because you still think you can recover: you probably can’t, or you wouldn’t be in this position to begin with.
Probably much truth to this.
I started investing with Vanguard mutual funds. No ETFs at the time. And then joined TMF and read and asked questions. Left the initial positions in mutual funds and started to put new money into stocks as my knowledge increased. Eventually got into Mechanical Investing which was too volatile for DH, who started to try to manage my investing without having any clue about investing himself. Remember that you are only investing for yourself if you are single.
Because divorce is expensive, (over exaggeration but the fights were not worth the growth of the portfolio which was rising very nicely,) we turned our assets over to a financial advisor who was wildly recommended by a few of our friends, highly written up as a rising FP in magazines and USA Today. He was an excellent salesman, but investor? Not so much. He would apply a one size fits all approach, the same mutual funds no matter the tax status of the account instead of choosing assets to maximize tax efficiency and after tax return. He pushed back on my goals or things I wanted to have done with our account, and I repeatedly had to prove him wrong by showing him my calculations that proved we could retire early and we should do Roth Conversions, that taking SS at 70 would be right for us. He just applied standardized platitudes to us while I was the one thinking outside the box and running the numbers.
Those are just the highlights. The best thing he did was prove to DH that I do know what I am doing and that I could certainly be picking mutual funds better than the FP, with a smattering of individual stocks here and there. I consider BRK to be more of a mutual fund/ETF than a stock.
I would encourage you not to look at WendyBG, not to look at newsletters, or any message board.
This I would STRONGLY disagree with. Knowledge is always good to acquire, though just reading a post or two does not make what you read immediately actionable.
Our FP had absolute shock in his voice when we terminated his services. “No one does that! People love me!” I went to the school of TMF. No alphabet soup of letters after my name, but as DH finally realized, that FP learned a great deal from me, which I could teach him from learning a great deal right here on these boards. The FPs I’ve met with are great marketers of their services, not necessarily great investors or the best option to service your account. Their fees and the fees of the funds they put you into tend to be a HUGE drag on your investments, particularly felt in down markets since they always get their cut.
Do your homework.
IP
