2022/02/23

Benford's law

 Benford's law


Collatz conjecture

 Collatz conjecture

A Deep Math Dive into Why Some Infinities Are Bigger Than Others

 A Deep Math Dive into Why Some Infinities Are Bigger Than Others

Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction

 Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction

Sparta Was Much More Than an Army of Super Warriors

 Sparta Was Much More Than an Army of Super Warriors

Watch thousands of 'vinegar eels' swarm through a water droplet in amazing new video

 Watch thousands of 'vinegar eels' swarm through a water droplet in amazing new video

Everything We See Is a Mash-up of the Brain’s Last 15 Seconds of Visual Information

 Everything We See Is a Mash-up of the Brain’s Last 15 Seconds of Visual Information

21 Clever Things You Never Knew Table Salt Could Do

 21 Clever Things You Never Knew Table Salt Could Do

13 LGBTQ royals you didn’t learn about in history class

13 LGBTQ royals you didn’t learn about in history class 

Arizona's phony electors aren't patriots, they're traitors

 Arizona's phony electors aren't patriots, they're traitors

The Great Wright Road Trip: Touring nine Frank Lloyd Wright destinations in western Pennsylvania, New York

 The Great Wright Road Trip: Touring nine Frank Lloyd Wright destinations in western Pennsylvania, New York

Yosemite’s Firefall Phenomenon To Draw Thousands Of Visitors Next Month (Feb 2022)

 Yosemite’s Firefall Phenomenon To Draw Thousands Of Visitors Next Month

Revealed: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters and corrupt politicians

 Revealed: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters and corrupt politicians

2022/02/04

Picking a Financial Advisor

Test brokers with 2 questions 

Question one

What funds and stocks do you have in your own portfolio?

After your nice broker-adviser balks on this one, which they will by telling you that they never disclose their net worth, apologize and tell them you just want to know which specific funds and stocks they actually bought, and why.

Tell them you want to know all about his portfolio, the securities, asset allocations, returns and what their reasoning was in each case, including what was sold as well as bought.

And tell them you feel this is valuable in learning how to build a successful portfolio, as well as helping you learn about the thinking process of a savvy investor like them, before you hire them as your broker-adviser.

Question two

Can you recommend some comparable no-load funds?

Tell your broker you may still buy the funds that he is selling. But first you'd like some specific alternatives to compare so you can hear his specific rationale for buying the one load fund over the no-load alternative. And every time your broker makes any recommendations in the future, ask the same question and force why you should pay the commission versus going with the no-load fund.

Alternatively, you might first write down the names of the specific funds recommended by your nice broker-adviser, ask for their ticker symbols and then go to the "Explode Funds" list on FundAdvice.com. See if some of your broker's funds are on the list and find the alternatives yourself. Explode Funds is a list of the 100 largest load funds in America, along with comparable alternative no-load funds for each.

There are a whole bunch of other questions you could ask your friendly broker-adviser: Like do they get extra incentives for selling you certain funds, why you should buy one class over another, redemption fees, transaction costs, breakpoints that lower fees and commissions.

Never pay commissions, buy no-loads

But my guess is your friendly broker probably won't answer enough about the first two questions to satisfy either you or them, and you'll just hang up. More likely, once you get all the facts you'll become a savvy investor and you'll just go buy the alternative no-load funds all by yourself and save the commissions and fees.

One final tidbit of advice: If you really want to go a step further and learn all you need to know about the best 996 no-load funds in America, along with six suggested portfolios made up solely of no-load funds, check out Sheldon Jacob's No-Load Fund Investor, another one of America's best resources if you want to graduate and become a truly serious lazy investor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 The first step that any investor should take before they do business, especially with a new broker or a new investment professional, is to use BrokerCheck to do a background search,” said Gerri Walsh, who is the president of Finra Investor Education Foundation and a vice president of Finra Investor Education. “Make sure they are licensed either with Finra as a registered representative or with the SEC or a state regulator as a registered investment adviser.”

 Then, examine their background. Examine, for instance, where somebody has worked, how stable their employment has been, what licenses they hold, whether there have been any legal or disciplinary actions against them, whether there’s been any customer complaints or a lawsuit, what states they are registered to do business in, and whether they have filed a personal bankruptcy. (You can also the ZIP Code search function in the SEC’s investment adviser search tool to see which advisers are licensed and registered in your city or town.)

 So what in particular should you be looking for? “Any broker who has changed firms numerous times in a short period of time, such as four firms in five years, that’s likely a red flag,” said Walsh. “And that’s something you should consider.”

 And if a broker has a history of complaints or disciplinary actions, you should “think twice before trusting your money to them,” Walsh said.

 In general, regulators say there are three simple steps that you need to follow to make sure that you and your money aren’t separated: Know your broker; know the product; and get a second, unbiased third-party opinion. 

Ask about the risks, the credit rating of the issuer, the fees, and the possibilities that you could lose money or lose your principal entirely investing in whatever recommendation the investment professional is making. “When it comes to investing, investors can’t always control their returns,” Walsh said. “But they can control their costs.”

However, doing a search of the product in the SEC’s EDGAR system, which track holds the records of publicly traded securities such as mutual funds, is a good place to start one’s due diligence of a product recommendation.

Also, the regulators recommend that you ask an attorney, CPA or some other adviser who doesn’t have a vested interest and whose judgment your trust to review your adviser’s investment recommendations. “It’s a great idea to get a second opinion or even a third opinion, especially in this environment where yields are particularly low, where we’ve got low interest rates on standard more secure products,” said Walsh. “They might ask questions that you haven’t thought of and they might have other ideas that what your investment professional recommended.”

Wandering financial advisers

Consider: Using a novel data set of 1.2 million advisers across four major regulatory “regimes” (brokers regulated by Finra, advisers regulated by the SEC, insurance agents regulated by state insurance departments, and commodities dealers) and Colleen Honigsberg, an associate professor at Stanford Law School, Edwin Hu, a research fellow at New York University School of Law, and Robert Jackson, Jr. a professor at New York University School of Law, recently conducted the first systematic analysis of what they called “wandering financial advisers.”

And in their paper, the researchers showed that a little over a third of advisers who exit the brokerage industry remain in at least one other regime, that advisers are significantly more likely to change regimes after committing serious misconduct, and that wandering advisers with a history of misconduct are significantly more likely to engage in future misconduct.

Of note, the researchers not only offered explanations for why advisers wander but they offered policy makers concerned about the costs of financial-adviser misconduct with tools to address this phenomenon, a national database being one such tool.

This research, for the record, was described by an expert who eats, breathes, and sleeps all things fiduciary as “sobering.” It provides, said Knut Rostad, president and co-founder of the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard, “a first-of-its-kind documentation of how many financial sales reps prey on unsuspecting citizens.” It shows, he said, how they (advisers) appear to “succeed” by quitting FINRA and keeping their status as state insurance producers. To wit: 13.4% have “a history of serious misconduct” according to the paper.

And serial recidivists appear commonplace. “Wandering advisers with a history of misconduct are more likely to be recidivists in the future (and) those with the most serious history of misconduct are disproportionately likely to end up in state insurance regimes.”

Article Links

Protect your retirement from scams  

Don’t trust anyone until you do a background check 

Rule No. 1 when searching for a financial adviser: Trust no one  

Test brokers with 2 questions

Investor.GOV - Updated Investor Bulletin: How to Check Out Your Investment Professional

How to Check Out Your Broker or Investment Adviser

 

Sources:

BrokerCheck 

Contact Your Regulator

Welcome to the Investment Adviser Public Disclosure website  

SEC’s EDGAR

2022/02/01

Millions of Americans have quit their jobs. Is Obamacare helping them?


 

 Millions of Americans have quit their jobs. Is Obamacare helping them?

NFTs Are, Quite Simply, Bullshit

 NFTs Are, Quite Simply, Bullshit

"If you’re not already immersed in this glorified Pokémon card ponzi scheme, it’s all a little perplexing, and you may be wondering what any of it actually means. In essence, an NFT gives you exclusive ownership over a digital object of some kind (images, songs, tweets, and virtually anything else can be turned into an NFT)."