Quote:
Originally Posted by ErikLS2
Greg, I'm reall liking your way more and more, not that I ever disliked it. One thing that comes to mind is these investing "professionals" who will claim to know what to put you in. I experienced this when my wife didn't want to have anything to do with her retirement plan and just wanted someone to do it for her and she didn't want to listen to me. She had an Edward Jones guy come over and give us his pitch. He has all these load (high sales charge) mutual funds for her and I had my Money magazine list of low cost above average performing funds. Basically, he was pushing funds that he got a commision on because after all this is what he does for a living. The Money list has some really good funds on it, if you're into them, and it's relatively unbiased and the criteria for them to make the list is fundamentally sound.
These professionals don't really know anything you can't learn by doing what Greg is saying and it really comes down to do whether you think they can predict the future any better than you can yourself?
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Edward Jones is one of THE WORST "investment houses" in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE.... you hit the nail right on the head -- these basterds only buy front end loaded funds! Their commissions are like 5% UP FRONT -- but you never see that on a statement -- you have to do the math to figure out they screwed you... and they buy "mutual funds" that are hard to find and figure out what the f is in them... and then you check the "EXPENSE RATIO" of the fund and find out it's 1 1/2%.... so by the time you pay these AHoles 5% up front - and then pay the fund management another 1 and a half percent - and the "fund" has a 1.25% "dividend" --- do the math --- YOU'RE GOING BACKWARDS with inflation factored in!
I so hate those kind of people! They've ruined more retirement funds than the law should allow!
I just looked at someone else's "professionally managed" funds.... every one of them was a front end loaded mutual fund... OMG -- I just want to go postal on those kinds of firms!
FOLKS -- there is NO REASON WHATSOEVER to invest with an Edwards Jones or any outfit like that!
Investing is so easy a caveman can do it! Just buy big good companies that have paid an increasing dividend over a long period of time... and with charts that go from low to high over a long period of time. If you know the name - look 'em up! Check 'em out! This ain't rocket science! Pick a drug company - go to your medicine cabinet and see who makes the stuff -- then go to Google or Yahoo Finance - - and search the name -- the go to your food cupboard - gather some food names - go look 'em up and do some comparisons -- then drive down the street around town -- what's the biggest retailers -- write 'em down and look 'em up...
If you did that -- you'd own FOOD -- RETAIL -- PHARMACEUTICALS - GAS and OIL - so if you owned 5 stocks you'd already start to be DIVERSIFIED! THE key to this is to own what known as "BEST OF CLASS".... so when the name surfaces -- now start to compare this against other names you know in the same "industry"... so if you're thinking "retailers" -- then compare COSTCO - WALMART - TARGET - HOME DEPOT - LOWES etc.... if it's "drugs"/pharmaceuticals -- then look at MERCK - PFIZER - JOHNSTON and JOHNSON (not really a drug company).... If you need Food -- there's a ton of great names - just open your cupboard or refrigerator...
OR -- If you poke around in a Schwab account -- there is a RESEARCH function and you can use it to search for all the companies in an industry/sector.... and then you can sort 'em by their size - or by their growth over a period - or by the dividend they pay.
Does this take some work? Yeah.... but isn't it worth it? It takes some work to build a car too...
When you find some names that look good to you in your research --- WRITE THEM DOWN -- and Write WHY you like them -- and what they look like on paper i.e., Growth % over 5 or 10 years -- dividend payment - the sector they're in (retail - gas - manufacturing etc) so you can then not overlap. Get two or three names in each sector and then go back and compare them. I like Coke - I don't drink Pepsi - they're so similar on "paper" that I just prefer to own Coke. It's as simple as that. I use AT&T -- I used to own AT&T and VERIZON -- but I wanted more diversification - and I wanted a bigger position in another couple of companies so I sold the VZ and bought MORE AT&T and another couple of stocks in different sectors.
I own TWO "terbacky" stocks -- PM and MO -- I HATE smoking -- it kills people -- but as long as people want to smoke - and the companies pay great dividends and have great growth -- I'm going to own 'em. It's kinda like "guns don't kill people - people kill people" - kinda the same with smoking...
People are going to use -- food - drugs - smoke - buy gas - and talk on their cell phones... So I'm going to own the BEST OF THESE COMPANIES in these sectors... as long as they meet the other 'requirements' -- capital growth and dividend payers... and have that nice sweet chart.
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