Why I Hate, Loathe, and Despise Mutual Funds, Second Verse

Let me clarify my hatred.  I don't hate all mutual funds per se.  I hate the way they are used by the vast majority of financial advisers who charge a fee for their services.  It makes my blood boil.  It makes me so mad that I woke up this morning and had to come straight to DIY Stocks to tell you about it.

A friend of mine volunteered to act as a case study for the experiment that is DIY.  I figured it's easier for people to learn about their own situation if we use specific examples from real life.

At first I was kind of disappointed because my friend and her husband have done everything right.  They are super-organized, savers at heart, have already retired (which is the feet-to-the-fire test of how good your investment program is), and are living the life of everybody's dreams.  How could anything I have to say possibly improve their situation?  Nothing was broken.

Of course their investment accounts came with personalized annual reviews, fancy booklets printed in vibrant color at least 30 pages long and full of bar charts, pie charts, line graph comparisons, risk-reward scatter-plots, graphs in the shape of triangles, graphs in the shape of cubes, maps of investments by geographical region.  Alpha, Beta, and R-squared indicators. Weightings and Valuation Multiples.  Equity investments were divided down into High Yield, Distressed, Hard Asset, Cyclical, Slow Growth, Classical Growth, Aggressive Growth and Speculative Growth.  This template is a Morningstar product, one of the most highly respected names in fund analysis and widely used throughout the industry.

I've been reading the language of investing since 1979 - and I'm really good at it - but I couldn't figure out what the heck this report was telling me.

Except I did understand one thing:  buried in the middle of the report were the actual performance results of my friend's investments.  Her husband's assets had realized 7.44% versus 14.39% during the same period for the S&P 500.  Her accounts had realized 5.74% versus 20.22% for the S&P 500 since she had used their services.

But that's not what made my blood boil.

What made me absolutely furious was when I happened to notice that all the graphs in the annual review read Year-to-Date for 2013 and yet they started in February.  What the heck was that about?  So I went back and checked the market performance in January of 2013.  Turns out the S&P had gotten off to its best start since 1997 and returned 5.2% in a single month, the month their adviser so conveniently forgot to include - because if he had, my friend - my honest, hard-working, trusting friend - even she might have noticed how much she had under-performed a non-managed index and asked questions.

The one fact I couldn't find anywhere in the report was how much this firm was charging for their advice.  Let me guarantee nobody in this business works for free.

Normally I try to give people the benefit of a doubt.  But these reports are pure and simple gobbelty-gook designed to make people feel stupid.  If you can't figure out what you are paying or what you own or why you own it, it's not your fault.  It's a system that has been designed to produce maximum revenues for service providers while keeping you helpless.  What is presented as objective fact, is not. It is carefully selected facts chosen to make the adviser look good.  In this case (not at all uncommon), I'd call it outright fraud.

And if this were my money, I wouldn't pay this guy another dime.*

*www.vanguard.com is the web address for Vanguard funds.  The symbol for the un-managed S&P500 Index fund is VFIAX - and last year it returned 32.33% JANUARY to December.

Do You Really Want to Be a Grown-Up?

I have the advantage of having kept a journal since I was fourteen years old.  Never very consistent about making entries, large chunks of my life are missing.  Writing is where I go when I'm confused so most of what I saved are the hard, annoying questions.

If there's a theme to my first forty plus years, it was, "What do I want my life to look like?"  Which was almost always followed by a long list of the things I thought would make me happy.

Periodically I look back over my lists and, it's weird, I got most of what I wanted.  New furniture for the screened-in porch. Christmas in Costa Rica with our kids.  I was the first female producer to make Chairman's Club at Merrill Lynch.  My picture was often in the newspaper.

But it didn't matter what I got or achieved.  I just kept on asking.

"What do I want my life to look like?" - contentment always just out of reach.  Even after I got divorced, quit my job, and remarried.  It seemed like I'd never get there.  Wherever there was.

One day I happened to stumble on a new book at the Public Library called, How to Live Well Without Owning a Car: Save Money, Breathe Easier and Get More Mileage out of Life by Chris Balish. The author had gotten in over his head in debt, was forced to give up his car and liked his life so much better he never bothered to replace it.  Inspired, I decided to limit my driving and ride my bike 5 days a week even though I lived at the top of a steep, one mile hill.  It was 2006 and I was fifty years old.

Riding the eight miles downtown and back made me feel like I was twelve years old again.  Free and powerful and independent.  Do you remember?  How it felt to be able to go anywhere you wanted without your parents for the first time.  I loved being twelve.

There was one special morning in particular.  It was June, just after school had let out for summer vacation and my mother was in the backyard watering her azaleas - that part of the day when the air is still cool, but you know it's going to get really hot in the afternoon - which was something you noticed and appreciated before everybody got air-conditioning.  I was standing in the grass in a patch of sun, my whole summer ahead of me.  The birds were singing and I could smell the wet dirt in the garden.  My best friend, Paige, and I had plans to spread a quilt under the elm in the backyard and work on the novel we were writing together.

Bingo. It took me fifty years but I finally figured it out, what made me happy.  The exact same things that made me happy when I was twelve.  Riding my bike.  Sunshine.  Free time to do anything I want. Writing. It had been there all along.  I just couldn't see it.   So that's the way I live my life these days, the same way I did when I was twelve. There is nothing I can pay for with money that could make me feel as good and have it last.

Of course, I still make lists every once in a while, but now they say things like, "Make pot of lentil soup."  "Return library books."   "Take a walk down by the river."  And I never, ever, ever have to ask myself what I want my life to look like any more.  Because I'm exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to do.   And I'm very, very happy.



 

The DIY Stocks Guinea Pig Tells All

The DIY Stocks Concept was started because I ran into a former client at a social event.  He asked me for a recommendation for a new financial consultant and when I couldn't think of anyone, I offered to help him learn how to make his own investment decisions.  After two years, these are his impressions so far:

What prompted us to move from our broker?

·         We didn’t feel as if we were getting any personal attention such as advice or suggestions.

·         After 2008, we saw our portfolio decimated and the rise back up was too slow for our liking.

·         I ran into Kathy again after years and remembered our long and informative conversations peppered with what struck me as very personally targeted advice.

Why DIY Stocks?

      Kathy took a genuine interest in our personal situation and our short- and long-term goals.

·         Kathy offered to teach me about her approach with the goal of weaning me from her services

·         The payments to DIY Stocks were a flat rate as opposed to regular payments based on a percentage of growth.

Why individual securities as opposed to funds?

·         Well, they are more fun! What I mean is that Kathy’s approach is to research stocks of companies that are:

o   Already a part of our lives – examples for us are: Target, Starbucks, TJMaxx, P&G, GE, Facebook

o   Industries in which we are interested such as electric vehicles, solar energy, wind energy, 3D printing

 . . . and then buy ones that are strong with good potential. This makes it fun because our research is ongoing as we shop or listen to the news. This approach changed the way we look at and our interest level in our own neighborhood and chosen industries.

·         Stocks offered the growth potential that we wanted to get our portfolio back where we needed it.

Is this for everyone?

No. This is for people who:

·         Are interested in business and businesses.

·         Have a general understanding of business.

·         Enjoy some level of research (it’s not necessary to read the financial statements with a thorough understanding, but I must admit that I just read a book to hone my skills in this area)

·         Can stomach more risky investments than mutual funds.

Cons?

·         Riskier than funds

·         Requires more work on your part

Pros?

·         You become active in your future

·         You learn about the world around you

Socially Responsible Investing: My List of Stuff I Absolutely, Positively (almost never) Will Not Buy

If you watch enough television - especially the evening news and shows like American Greed – it’s a wonder we can get out of bed in the morning. While the fear-based perspective might sell advertising, this is not a complete or even accurate picture of where we are going as a species.  The nature of public companies is changing in a fundamental way, most of it for the better.

A great example is Google.  They’re working on all kinds of strange products, way outside their core of data collection from the search engine business.  Their most recent corporate announcement highlights the development of a smart contact lens for diabetics that will monitor blood glucose levels through tears once a minute and send the information to the patient and doctor’s mobile devices.  They are even planning to add an LED light that will flash when blood sugar hits dangerous levels.  In a recent blog post they explained why they entered this market:

"We're not going to do this alone: we plan to look for partners who are experts in bringing products like this to market. These partners will use our technology for a smart contact lens and develop apps that would make the measurements available to the wearer and their doctor. We've always said that we'd seek out projects that seem a bit speculative or strange, and at a time when the International Diabetes Federation is declaring that the world is "losing the battle" against diabetes, we thought this project was worth a shot."

They have sufficient excess cash flow to fund the research.  They have the expertise.  They plan to partner.  They want to help people live  better lives.  That’s the kind of co-operative world I want to live in and the a company I want to own.

Every investment decision we make should be in support of a better world.  The stock market is a giant voting mechanism and over time, good eventually triumphs over greed.  There’s some part of human consciousness that recognizes cooperation and a broader view is the right way to go on both a social as well as individual level.  There is enough for all of us if we operate from a place of faith rather than fear.

With that in mind, here is my personal list of industries I want no part of as I try to live a consistent life:

1.       Coal-mining Companies:  in every labor dispute I’m always rooting for the miners.  But in my heart, I hope the workers are forced out of business and have to retrain.  Oh, that they might find other ways to earn a living, one that isn’t so dangerous and doesn’t pollute the air.

2.       Automobile Companies:  I drive my 2005 Pontiac Vibe less than 2000 miles a year and will never buy another car if this one conks out.  Three years ago we moved downtown to a walkable neighborhood.  I ride my bike to do errands and take the bus to the airport.

3.       Weapons Manufacturers:  I don’t own a gun.  I’ve never touched a gun.  I long for a more peaceful world.

4.       For-Profit Prison Operators:  I don’t believe people should be financially rewarded by prisons full to maximum capacity. 

5.       Tobacco and Alcohol:  While I have smoked the occasional cigarette and enjoy a glass of wine while I cook dinner, I do not want to make money from the self-destructive addictions of others.

6.       Gambling Stocks:  Oh, the guilt.  I hate gambling.  It makes no sense to me and it upsets me to even walk through a casino and watch people put hundred bills down on the tables.  But MGM is one of my biggest positions.  They’re the biggest operator on the Strip in Las Vegas and I bought it as a uniquely American vacation destination that would benefit from the economic recovery.  My Italian mother-in-law is gaga about the place.  I rationalize my ownership by telling myself that lots of people, like her, go to Vegas for the neon lights, theme hotels, shows and fine dining. 

7.       Luxury Goods:  I don’t get them.  When I wear jewelry, it’s most often plastic, purchased on Ebay.  Shopping is a tedious bore and if you are going to judge me based on what I’m wearing, good luck.

8.       Drug Companies:  I stopped going to doctors 8 years ago.  All my well-intentioned physicians wanted to do was write me prescriptions.  The pills didn’t help.  I had to change the underlying problems in my life.  Now I take no pills.  Michele takes no pills.  I wish people would rely less on pharmaceutical intervention and listen more carefully to the messages from their body and not wait until they are in crisis to do it.

9.       Oil Companies:  Don’t like fossil fuels.  But, boy, we sure are dependent on them.

10.   Financial Service Firms and Banks:  I’m still mad at my former industry for what happened in 2008.  They continue to make way too much money.  Besides, I’m a firm believer that the internet is really going to turn this sector upside down eventually.  Micro-lending will eat the banks for lunch in the not so distant future.

The Best Investment I Ever Made

The year was 1998 and I had just paid all the closing costs to establish a 15-year fixed rate mortgage a few months earlier.  The market was going gang-busters and my business partners thought I was crazy when I told them I was going to pay off the loan.

"But it's tax-deductible," they cried, shaking their heads in unison.

"You'll make so much more money in stocks," they tried to tell me again and again and again

But I didn't care.  Even though I'd managed stock portfolios for over 20 years and everything looked great, something inside kept poking at me.  It didn't matter what they thought.  The whole world could say how stupid I was, but I went ahead and wrote the bank a big, fat check.  A year later I married an Italian who also owned his home free and clear.  Even though we've bought three houses since, we've never financed a penny of any of them, including our vacation home in Italy.

There's something that happens when you own your house outright that has nothing to do with balance sheets or opportunity costs.  You think about yourself in a different way.  While it seems so cowardly, like hiding under the bed, the very opposite is true.  Major life decisions are no longer tied to a monthly payment. You are suddenly free.  Really free. For the first time in your life.  You have a roof over your head that nobody can take away no matter what happens.. That's when you start to question a lot of other expenditures you've always taken for granted, like shiny, new cars and dry cleaning and window washers.  Soon you can't help but notice how little money it really costs to be happy - which is when you finally get it.   That paycheck you've been bringing home every two weeks is a choice, not a necessity.  Less than two years after I paid off the loan, I quit my job.  I was 44 years old.

Every once in a while, friends ask me for advise about their finances.  First thing I always say is, "Pay off your house."  But - as far as I know - nobody ever does it.  The concept of the mortgage is ingrained in American culture and everybody knows that smart, financially sophisticated people borrow money to buy real estate.

I guess it all depends what you are trying to accomplish.  The dot.com bubble that burst on March 10, 2000 at a NASDAQ high of 5,408 fell to below 1400.  More than 13 years later it has yet to break its old high. My goal isn't to get as rich as possible. It's to enjoy my life and sleep well with what money I've got.

38.04% in 2013

The numbers are in and Michele's and my accounts returned 38.04% net of all expenses last year.  Not bad.  Total return on the S&P 500 was 32.39, so I beat the market.

Which is considered to be a good thing, or so I've heard.  But why?  Why do news anchors and countless Ivy League educated professionals obsess over what the market does?  Everybody agrees.  Market's up, it's a good year.  Market's down and we're all depressed.  That's when we run for the back of the cave because the market says so.

Don't get me wrong.  I think the stock market is one of the most amazing inventions in the history of mankind, as important as the wheel.  A minute-by-minute voting mechanism where anybody in any country (with any money) has a say about their best guess for the future - that's a powerful tool. Because we all know something.  Everybody has a piece of the highly complex puzzle that is the 21st century.  The financial indexes quantify all our hopes and dreams and fears, the wars, everything we know, the dirty little secrets our governments think they can hide, our inventions and scientific advances, every mistake, bluff and blunder we make on this planet.  It's all there somewhere, condensed into a single, simple number.  I love the language of stocks.  So messy yet so precise.

But. . . but. . .

If you are a professional paid to manage other people's money, then you have to worry about beating the S&P 500.  But to normal folks like you and me, what does it really matter?  The market isn't right or wrong. It's just a bunch of human beings voting.  At it's best it's a tool to make our own decisions about what we think and invest our hard-earned dollars accordingly. 

But beating the market will never be as important as a good night's sleep.  Or a friend we can call when everything's gone wrong.  It's not a walk in the woods or a good book or the time to enjoy those things.  And it's definitely not our health.  Beating the S&P 500 is not a goal.  It's just a number on a page and I'm never going to use it to measure my life.