On Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at 7:40:32 AM UTC-7, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at 7:22:11 AM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at 6:34:33 AM UTC-7, Zen Cycle wrote:
On Tuesday, July 16, 2019 at 7:23:19 PM UTC-4, Tom Kunich wrote:

All the money I made was from questioning even the simplest thing.

So I guess that really worked out for you when you wrote:

"I just changed investment counselors after speaking to a group tied to Merrill-Lynch. They were sort of shocked that I had lost money in the Trump market when everyone else made 15%+"

what a moron.....

Well, maybe he questioned that simple thing "buy low, sell high." Someone has to question it, just to make sure it is still working.

-- Jay Beattie.

While in a used book store I bought a copy of "Warren Buffet Invests Like A Girl" and reading that said just that - buy low and sell high. How successful have you been guessing what is low and what is high?

With Buffet, you're talking about M&As -- buying distressed companies, managing them into profitability and selling them off. You tell what is "low" by looking at various metrics from book value, top line, EBITDA, etc., etc. To determine whether it will become high, you look at prospects, potential synergies, risk and so forth. And then you determine what sort of return you can expect in that sector. Businesses in certain sectors sell for multiples of gross or net income -- so if you can flog income to a certain level, you can expect a particular return. This is real risk-taking because you're betting a lot on people to make the company run.

You're probably just throwing a few bucks into various funds, and judging by your loses, it sounds like you were into bonds, which the place they put retirees. Everybody took a hit on bonds. This kind of investing is hardly rocket science. You could have just plopped half/third your money into a Vanguard market index fund and let it sit. Put the other half/third in something less risky. Skip the fee-sucking investment counselors. Investment counseling for you probably takes ten minutes unless you're picking individual stocks and doing a serious job of picking.


-- Jay Beattie