WHAT’S NEW ON THE STREET??
Client asked for SSIM to “Old Portfolio” comparison to date …
The Smart Structure subscribers rake in the dough!
Ivy League endowment returns don’t beat the S&P500 …
Ivy Leaguers ... "So Smart that they Screw Themselves"!!
What if I Blow It ALL In The Last Inning?
YOU ARE YOUR ONLY SAFETY NET,
DON’T EVER BELIEVE OTHERWISE!
This is a HUGE issue for anyone nearing retirement with substantial assets, selling a business etc..
This affects people who aren’t retiring but realize that … WOW, I HAVE A LOT OF MONEY, IF THE MARKETS GET CRAZY I MIGHT NOT HAVE A LOT OF MONEY!
This issue affects so many people and causes more TERRIBLE DECISIONS to be made by intelligent people. (Disasters such as buying annuities, adding complexity (costs) for protection, using solutions that DO NOT WORK, yet hoping and believing that they may “this time”, following the herd - when your success in life is because YOU DIDN’T FOLLOW THE HERD)
The reasoning is simple, when you finally get to your retirement goal you realize that ONCE YOU RETIRE - ONCE YOU REMOVE YOUR INCOME STREAM - WHICH IS YOUR SAFETY NET!
So what do you do? Everyone in the world will bore you with their versions of traditional asset allocation models coupled with the ubiquitous “Monte Carlo Scenarios”. For some reason, running a simulation 10,000 times and. saying “you’ll be fine with 78% probability seems pretty damn stupid. But if that is your ONLY SOLUTION, guess what, THAT”S WHAT YOU PUSH!
Remember, Traditional Asset Allocation DOES NOT WORK as proven in our Pillar about asset allocation.
In order to be SURE to be COMFORTABLE in retirement you’ll need a NEW SOLUTION THAT IS PROVABLE TO WORK ACROSS ANY MARKET CYCLE!
You NEED A SOLUTION THAT IS EFFICIENT AND FUNGIBLE IN ASSET USAGE.
WITHOUT A CLEARLY DEFINED - PROVABLE SOLUTION - You’re guessing.
If you like to guess on the biggest financial decision of your life, Good Luck!
When you’re ready to Structure your Financial Life in a way that is understandable, with clearly defined risks, no internal expense and UNLIMITED GAINS,
DO YOU THINK THIS IS ADVICE?
DO YOU THINK THIS IS ADVICE?
Aug 7
A Key to Surviving the Global Market Selloff: Be Lazy
This is actually the exact title of Morningstar’s personal finance write from 8-5-24. The summary of all tips are as follows:
Tip Number One: BE LAZY
Tip Number Two: Focus on Your Long Term Goals
Tip Number Three: If You Need to Take Action, Take Thoughtful Action
During Volatility, Our Own Behaviors Are Our Worst Enemy.
REALLY? THIS IS THE INFORMATION THAT MORNINGSTAR CHARGES THE PUBLIC FOR?
Then Again, when you admit the truth, as illustrated by Spiva’s latest Persistence report, you realize that when you consistently GUESS as to how to allocate your money, YOU’LL BE WRONG!
their LUDICROUS “advice” is just as good as paying the professionals to GUESS FOR YOU!
What % of funds remained in TOP 50% (YES TOP 50%) of their PEER GROUP.
Make an appt to discuss
Keep me in the loop
Investing - Art or Science?
Its pretty simple.
If you have a PROVABLE SOLUTION … IT IS A SCIENCE!
If you’re UNABLE to provide a provable solution … IT’S AN ART.
I LOVE ART, especially music. I love the all types but especially enjoy Jazz and Jam Bands like the Grateful Dead and Phish because they take me on a journey when i go and listen and dance. I don’t know what I’m going to hear, don’t know how long they’ll play, don’t know if extra people will stand in and help out, don’t know who will be around me .. . and every night isn’t a grand slam. But ALL THE SHOWS ARE GOOD for various reasons, usually based on personal preference.
THAT IS ART. NOT PREDICATBLE, USUALLY ENJOYABLE, HOPEFULLY MEMORABLE.
That works great for a lot of things - JUST USUALLY NOT THE IMPORTANT THINGS!
WHEN IT COMES TO MONEY, MY HEALTH, MY RELATIONSHIPS I FIND THAT GUESSING RARELY WORKS!
BUT THATS WHAT EVERYONE ELSE DOES! STOP GUESSING AND CONTROL THOSE THINGS THAT YOU CAN!
SO WHEN YOURE DESIGNING YOUR FINANCIAL WORLD - DON’T GUESS!
But THIS is what you’re going to get from the Wall Street Talking heads:
IT IS VERY INTERESTING THAT the standard Wall Street Disclaimer says: PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO INDICIATION OF FUTURE RETURNS!
YET EVERY SINGLE RECOMMENDATION SHOWS YOU PAST PERFORMANCE AS AN “INDICATION” OF WHAT YOU “MIGHT” EXPECT TO HAPPEN!
They even ADMIT that NO ONE CONSISTENTLY BEATS THE INDEXES OVER TIME … THEN — THEY GIVE YOU THEIR GUESS AS TO WHAT WILL WORK TOMORROW!
WALL STREET WANTS YOU TO NEED THEM -
EVEN THOUGH THEY DON’T DELIVER ANYTHING NEAR WHAT THEY PROPOSE (Asset allocation - snake oil)
WE PROVE OUR MODEL WORKS - YOU USE IT TO CREATE YOUR DESIRED MODEL!
and we do it using simple arithmetic, not even “hard math”.
Even better is that we prove it IMMEDIATELY upon subscribing, no waiting to see if it works!
Smart Structure Models is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from the rest of the Wall Street Prognosticators for a few very specific reasons:
1) We are here to “Teach you how to fish, so you can eat for a lifetime”
2) WE DON’T GUESS ABOUT ANYTHING! Our Model allows YOU to implement the perfect allocation for YOUR portfolio - AS DEFINED BY YOU!
3) WE ENABLE YOU TO IMPLEMENT ASSET FUNGIBILITY INTO YOUR PORTFOLIO! Our Model creates EFFICIENCY across ALL of your Assets, changing banking forever!
4) WE GIVE PERFECT CLARITY AS TO FUTURE OUTCOMES! NO MORE FEARING VOLATILITY, OUR SUBSCRIBERS LOOK FORWARD TO CAPITALIZE ON CRAZINESS!
5) WE HELP YOU TO IMPLEMENT YOUR SOLUTION (if needed) WHEREVER YOU’RE MONEY RESIDES. Zero need to change your custodians if you like them. We will tell you if there are better solutions based on fees, ease of use etc.
.We DO NOT CARE ABOUT ANYONE BUT YOU! We don’t have a ONE SIZE FITS ALL SOLUTION that you invest in and HOPE things work out.
Each Modeled analysis is a bespoke solution based on up to the minute data AND YOUR EXACT SPECIFICATIONS.
There is a great quote about life and time: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man,” The market last Wednesday was different than it is today. Interest rates have changed, volatility has changed, prices have changed, time has changed, but people stick with their same old “off the shelf” solutions because thats the ART of things. If you build your portfolio based on a sound PROVABLE structure, there is NOTHING TO FEAR - YOU KNOW HOW IT WILL BEHAVE IN ALL ENVIRONMENTS!
Is your Broker/Advisor telling the TRUTH?
Is your Broker/Advisor telling the TRUTH?
Jul 29
Charles Schwab agreed to pay $187 million to settle an SEC investigation into alleged hidden fees charged by the firm’s robo-advisor, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, according to an agency announcement on Monday.
“Robo-advisor” is shorthand for a digital investment service that uses algorithms to judge how to allocate individuals’ money among asset classes such as stocks, bonds and cash.
From March 2015 through November 2018, Schwab DIDN’T DISCLOSE TO CLIENTS that its robo-advisor allocated funds “in a manner that their own internal analyses showed would be less profitable for their clients under most market conditions,” the SEC claimed. CNBC 06-22
LPL markets to Advisors with the statement “ The FUTURE IS FIDUCIARY “ SOUNDS GOOD SO FAR RIGHT? Then we read: “LPL Targeted in Latest Suit Over ‘Paltry’ Rates on Cash Sweeps”
The complaint, which seeks class action certification, alleges that since 2016, LPL “has been engaged in a multiyear process to reposition the cash holdings in its customers’ brokerage accounts into cash ‘investment’ vehicles that generate substantial revenue for LPL while at the same time providing little to no benefit to Defendant’s customers,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in San Diego on Wednesday.
Its cash sweep programs are designed to ensure that LPL “will always receive the vast majority of the interest earned by its customers’ cash holdings,” and that the firm’s customers will always receive “only a small fraction” of the interest that could be generated if their cash was placed in “any other bank savings account,” according to the complaint.
LPL additionally “glosses over” the availability of higher yield alternatives for cash management outside of the cash sweep programs such as money market funds, which offer similar levels of liquidity and principal protection to bank deposits. One securities analyst on Friday said that higher interest rates on clients’ cash held in advisory accounts may cost LPL Financial Holdings Inc. as much as $380 million, shaving off $3.80 per share on the company’s earnings in the future.
The analyst, Jeff Schmitt of William Blair Equity Research, wrote the note about LPL in the wake of the company being sued by a client on Wednesday in federal court in San Diego, with the claim alleging that LPL’s cash sweep program allows the company to unjustly enrich itself, which potentially constitutes a breach of fiduciary duty.
Interestingly, Wells Fargo, which disclosed in October that it faced an Securities and Exchange Commission review, on Friday reported that it would lose $350 million in revenue this year as it raised rates on cash in managed accounts. Similarly, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America reported this week that interest rate payments were on the rise at their wealth management divisions. At least Wells was proactive, for what it’s worth.
DO YOU GET THE PICTURE? WALL STREET IS AROUND TO SELL YOU THINGS AND TAKE YOUR MONEY!
YOUR RESULTS DO NOT MATTER THEM AT ALL!
Check out the Smart Structure Solution. DEMAND PROOF!
INVESTORS BELIEVE ALMOST ANYTHING!
INVESTORS BELIEVE ALOMST ANYTHING!
Jul 29
We realize this and Smart Structure and our patent pending solution enables you to: Keep It Simple STUPID Smart-investor!
This the first line of Jason Zweig’s latest missive on personal finance. I won’t bore you with the details of another excellent story (I recommend following him), but I’ll summarize:
This latest pitch makes no sense for the buyer, makes lots of $$$ for the seller and ties your money up paying those fees for years at a time.
(I’ll BET they DON’T list that in the description in their marketing pieces.)
Why would any rational person want this? Because “so many investors, financial advisers and fund managers want to invest in “alternatives,” or assets other than publicly traded stocks and bonds, interval funds are booming”.
“As the costs on market-tracking index funds and ETFs continue to fall toward zero, asset managers are urgently seeking new ways of milking high fees from their clients. The equally urgent task for investors is to think about how much asset management should cost and which returns are even worth pursuing in the first place.”
Now, WHY are people looking for “Alternatives” to add to their portfolio, especially when those “Alternatives” have HIGH FEES, LOW LIQUIDITY and COMPLEXITY without any guarantee of any results going forward?
It’s SIMPLE: WALL STREET SELLS THIS CRAP TO YOU BECAUSE THEY CAN’T MEET OR BEAT THEIR INDEXES — SO THEY CONFUSE YOU WITH NONSENSE AND PROMISES!!.
Wall Street talking heads do one thing: TALK THEIR BOOK. That simply means that any question always leads back to THEIR STORY where they explain why what they’ve uncovered is the greatest and only solution since sliced bread. There are an infinite number of examples that illustrate “financial solutions” that FLY IN THE FACE of one of the MOST IMPORTANT things that YOU HAVE EVER LEARNED:
Keep It Simple Stupid!!
At SMART STRUCTURE we LIVE the KISS method.
Like William of Occam stated in his theory of Parsimony or Theory of Occam’s Razor—the idea that the simplest explanation is always preferable
We change the concept slightly: Keep It Simple Smart-investor
US Stocks were CHILL in 2024 - TIL YESTERDAY!!
US Stocks were CHILL in 2024 - TIL YESTERDAY!!
Fiduciary = Does it REALLY mean ANYTHING?
I hear the term “Fiduciary” thrown about all the time, WOULD YOU BE SHOCKED TO FIND OUT that “FIDUCIARY” is a game of SEMANTICS and NOT AN ACTUAL STANDARD????