May 2017

Two Numbers

Investing May 30, 2017

Two Numbers You Need to Know

How much is your electric bill?  What about media (cable, Netflix, etc)?  Or your phone bill?  You probably have at least a general idea, and if you had to know the exact number, you could find it relatively easily.  The two numbers you need to know in investing are how much are you paying and how did you do.  This sounds so easy, but for too many people, it’s difficult to track down.  The crazy thing is that investment companies are often reluctant to disclose this information.  Can you imagine calling the electric company to ask how much you paid last month and they wouldn’t give you a straight answer?  Or if you asked how much electricity you used and they would only tell you how much your individual appliances used?  That is what happened to Wall Street Journal reporter Andrea Fuller when she called her investment company and asked about fees….

Redder Red Flags

Due Diligence May 22, 2017

When it comes to money manager due diligence, some flags are redder than others.  Investment process and expense ratios are important, but making sure your money manager didn’t just settle with the federal regulators for $5 million and get barred from trading by the futures industry FOR LIFE is probably a pretty big freaking box you’ll want checked. Disgraced former head of MF Global, Jon Corzine, is fundraising for a new hedge fund.  This guy misplaced $1.6 billion of investor funds for two years and got barred from the futures industry for the rest of his life.  While it takes uh…guts?… for him to raise funds, it’s even crazier that people are actually going to hand over their money for him to manage via whatever loopholes were built into his deal with the feds. It’s important not only to identify danger, but to have an understanding of the size and nature…

thank you

News May 12, 2017

Two Years

I set up this website two years ago with no particular goal in mind.  I just wanted to see how difficult it was to buy a domain and start a blog.  It turns out that the set up was the easy part.  The writing is harder.  For the first year, I wrote sporadically.  In this second year, I have tried to post something every week.  I have had varying degrees of success!  Thank you for sticking with me as I continue to figure this whole process out! My two most popular posts of the last year are also my most popular posts of all time, in no small part to being included in the Abnormal Returns daily links (Thanks Tadas!): Pick Good Funds – The latest marketing from American Funds suggests that bad active managers are pulling down the whole group relative to the S&P 500 and all investors need to…

News as drama

News, Opinion May 11, 2017

News As Drama

Children have trouble focusing their attention.  To get my son to turn all his attention to his homework (since when do first graders have homework, anyway?), we often need to mute or turn off the TV.  Handheld screens are completely off the table for him unless we are on a long car ride.  He doesn’t have the discipline to choose substance over sparkle.  YouTube knows that he and his generation love unboxing videos and shoddy animation.  Don’t think the media isn’t targeting you the same way. As an adult, you should be immune to such base manipulation, right?  This is not the case.  Advertisers need to get you to self-diagnose moderate to severe Wandering Toe Syndrome and ask your doctor if Toeproxin™ is right for you.   How do they do that?  The adult version of unboxing videos is drama.  This used to be the domain of prime-time fictional television….

No Picture

Fairway May 9, 2017

We Are Hiring

We are hiring a Wealth Management Associate for our Cleveland office.  That is a pretty broad title, but what we’re looking for is someone with an accounting or finance undergrad and has or is pursuing a CPA or CFP license.  The position will support our lead advisors in providing wealth management deliverables to our clients.  If you or someone you know fits this description and has 1-5 years of experience, reach out to Maria Hinton via email – mch at fairwaywealth dot com. I may be biased, but Fairway is a fun place to work.  You will be elbow-deep in all facets of wealth management, which is probably the most fun of all the managements. Here’s the full description: Wealth Management Associate Fairway Wealth Management LLC is a multi-family office providing integrated wealth management and investment advisory services.  Founded in 2002, the firm manages over $1.1 billion in assets for…