The problem with humans is that, well, we're human. It means we're subject to making decisions not in our best interest. We're easily distracted and excitable. We want to believe what we're told. It's a recipe for disaster. The purpose of insurance is to protect against something. Own a car? Great. Buy insurance in case [...]
The problem with bulls? It's the bulls**t! Be careful where you step. Now that the fiduciary rule is dead Merrill Lynch has confirmed it's business as usual. Customers be damned. Best interest? Forget about it. When it appeared regulators would require a fiduciary obligation Merrill jumped at the chance to be head cheerleader. See here, [...]
You meet the man/woman of your dreams. You marry. You name your spouse beneficiary of your IRA, life insurance, 401(k), etc. Fast forward a few years. Your marriage is one of the almost half that end in divorce. You forget to change the beneficiary of your IRA, life insurance, 401(k), etc. Fast forward a few [...]
We recently welcomed a new client to the Apollo family. He approached us after years as a DIY investor. During the get to know you phase he told us one of his biggest problems is the volume of information, not knowing what to believe, acting on (oftentimes competing) advice and ending up getting nowhere. We [...]
Let’s travel back in time to 2016. The Department of Labor rolls out the fiduciary rule. Firms providing retirement advice must act in the best interests of clients. Wall St firms scramble. The days of pushing products and soaking clients with commissions are over. Merrill Lynch rushes to act. They ban commissions on IRAs. Their [...]
Kudos to Barry Ritholtz for yet another pragmatic and useful article. The list is in reverse order so #1 has the least impact relative to #7 which has the most.
Frequent readers of the Apollo blog know of our, um, “love” for Big Media and the content-for-the-sake-of-content weapons-grade BS it spews. Given the importance of being fair we’ll give credit where due. Here’s an article actually worth reading: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-you-probably-have-less-money-invested-in-stocks-than-you-should-2018-05-23 For every Paleo diet, juice cleanse and the like there’s one tried and true way to [...]
Really enjoyed this graphic: So many applications to life. Knowing what we know, knowing what we don't and knowing there's so much more to learn. It's so important to know where we stand. We are what we are...not what we think we are.
With apologies to the ubiquitous series we’ve co-opted the title in order to share the single most wonderful piece of investment advice we’ve read in a long, long time. Buried in an article about Dollar Cost Averaging vs. Lump Sum Investing is this gem: “Ultimately the best solution is the one that gets an investor [...]
Oh to be a talking head. Get paid to say a bunch of stuff and not have to be accountable. What a life! Year after year dope after dope heaps BS upon BS. We should ignore it but we don’t. We are our own worst enemies. (Go here and here to find out why.) With [...]