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Stop Investing Like They Tell You: Discover and Overcome the 16 Mainstream Myths Keeping You from True Financial Freedom
Advisors, pundits, and academics all parrot the same traditional paradigm of a stock-and-bond-only investment strategy. But what if they’re wrong?
Stop Investing Like They Tell You is a practical guide to overcoming the potentially ruinous flaws in an investment portfolio. After operating under the umbrella of a large brokerage firm for over five years, Stephen Spicer CFP® came to realize that his personal investment strategy was incongruent with what he was supposed to, or even allowed to, recommend and grew increasingly uncomfortable with the prescribed advice. Unafraid to challenge the traditional paradigms of a broken system, Stephen built Spicer Capital to address his clients (and his own) investment and financial planning concerns.
In Stop Investing Like They Tell You, Stephen challenges traditional advice and guides investors through a comprehensive understanding of the 16 most egregious myths regurgitated throughout the financial industry. Upon completion of this text, readers are also left with confidence as to how they can better invest so as to protect and grow their life savings no matter what chaos the future may hold in store.
Stop Investing Like They Tell You is a practical guide to overcoming the potentially ruinous flaws in an investment portfolio. After operating under the umbrella of a large brokerage firm for over five years, Stephen Spicer CFP® came to realize that his personal investment strategy was incongruent with what he was supposed to, or even allowed to, recommend and grew increasingly uncomfortable with the prescribed advice. Unafraid to challenge the traditional paradigms of a broken system, Stephen built Spicer Capital to address his clients (and his own) investment and financial planning concerns.
In Stop Investing Like They Tell You, Stephen challenges traditional advice and guides investors through a comprehensive understanding of the 16 most egregious myths regurgitated throughout the financial industry. Upon completion of this text, readers are also left with confidence as to how they can better invest so as to protect and grow their life savings no matter what chaos the future may hold in store.
- GenresFinanceNonfictionMoney
313 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 31, 2021
41 people are currently reading
35 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 4, 2023
Eye Opening
A well written distillation of Nassim Taleb. Warning: inconvenient math that might cause you "buy and hold" people cognitive dissonance. I was successful at buy and hold for 30 years, but I've felt for some time now I was just lucky, this book helped me confirm what I knew deep down inside all along.
A well written distillation of Nassim Taleb. Warning: inconvenient math that might cause you "buy and hold" people cognitive dissonance. I was successful at buy and hold for 30 years, but I've felt for some time now I was just lucky, this book helped me confirm what I knew deep down inside all along.
April 6, 2024
This is a great book and broadened my perspective of the usual mainstream rhetoric of the traditional buy-and-hold a stock/bond mixed portfolio. The myths of 12, 10, or even 8% annual returns are dispelled as the influencers and financial advisors use to drum up excitement and ease clients with their "conservative" estimated future annual return. Stephen tempers return expectations so that the reader is aware and can adjust accordingly.
The book gets increasingly grim and bleak to the point about how your expected returns can be zero or even negative. This crescendos to the point where there are some solutions to this. Unfortunately, the solutions are underwhelming. Instead of a buy-and-hold a stock/bond mixed portfolio, the book claims that there are better options. It gets into active investing and stock picking based on value and dividends, real estate investing, annuities, etc. It's a mixed message of diversifying classes of assets on one hand, and selecting a limited number of stocks on the other hand. Stephen uses an example of university endowments, specifically Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton and how they use 'alternative' investments to achieve double digit annual returns. If an Ivy League endowment fund can do it, so can you!
Although i agree with a lot in this book, it seems like the whole premise of the book is to seperate money from readers away from their investment professional and fear monger them into entrusting their money to Stephen at Spicer Capital. It's not wrong to do that, but one needs to look at what Stephen stands to gain from this. It wouldn't make a lot of sense to persuade readers that they stand to lose their life savings if they continue with mainstream investment advice and then continue to say but that's the risk involved and something that you are going to have to live with. Instead, you should seek advice from Stephen in active investing, timing the market, and getting into riskiers asset classes that require a more hands-on approach; this leads to you depending more on Spicer Capital services to actively manage (and extract) your money.
In earlier chapters, Stephen claims that the modern portfolio theory is not as effective anymore because of the increased correlation coefficient of the assets it holds. However, Stephen fails to mention this increased correlation when he advises against the 60/40 stock and bond portfolio. As if real estate, your own business, and picking select stocks are excluded from this correlation.
In conclusion, I appreciate the ways this book exposes some of the flaws with mainstream financial advice. However, I do not appreciate the lack of an awareness of the authors proposal and the lack of transparency in how it holds up against the arguments used to dispel the myths. I would have given this book 4 stars without the authors attempts to guide nervous and fearful readers to grab a hold of a life-saving buoy provided by Spicer Capital.
The book gets increasingly grim and bleak to the point about how your expected returns can be zero or even negative. This crescendos to the point where there are some solutions to this. Unfortunately, the solutions are underwhelming. Instead of a buy-and-hold a stock/bond mixed portfolio, the book claims that there are better options. It gets into active investing and stock picking based on value and dividends, real estate investing, annuities, etc. It's a mixed message of diversifying classes of assets on one hand, and selecting a limited number of stocks on the other hand. Stephen uses an example of university endowments, specifically Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton and how they use 'alternative' investments to achieve double digit annual returns. If an Ivy League endowment fund can do it, so can you!
Although i agree with a lot in this book, it seems like the whole premise of the book is to seperate money from readers away from their investment professional and fear monger them into entrusting their money to Stephen at Spicer Capital. It's not wrong to do that, but one needs to look at what Stephen stands to gain from this. It wouldn't make a lot of sense to persuade readers that they stand to lose their life savings if they continue with mainstream investment advice and then continue to say but that's the risk involved and something that you are going to have to live with. Instead, you should seek advice from Stephen in active investing, timing the market, and getting into riskiers asset classes that require a more hands-on approach; this leads to you depending more on Spicer Capital services to actively manage (and extract) your money.
In earlier chapters, Stephen claims that the modern portfolio theory is not as effective anymore because of the increased correlation coefficient of the assets it holds. However, Stephen fails to mention this increased correlation when he advises against the 60/40 stock and bond portfolio. As if real estate, your own business, and picking select stocks are excluded from this correlation.
In conclusion, I appreciate the ways this book exposes some of the flaws with mainstream financial advice. However, I do not appreciate the lack of an awareness of the authors proposal and the lack of transparency in how it holds up against the arguments used to dispel the myths. I would have given this book 4 stars without the authors attempts to guide nervous and fearful readers to grab a hold of a life-saving buoy provided by Spicer Capital.
October 29, 2022
Great overview - don’t expect details
For the novice investor, this book will give you perspective and general ideas, which are a good start. Especially if your idea of investing is “60% stocks / 40% bonds”, you’ll learn the myths can can destroy your investments. However, if you want to learn details of when to invest in specific investment types (businesses, land, cash, stocks) and how to do it … you’ll need to continue your education. If you’re in line with this book’s recommendations, consider the link at the end of the book for the bonus material.
For the novice investor, this book will give you perspective and general ideas, which are a good start. Especially if your idea of investing is “60% stocks / 40% bonds”, you’ll learn the myths can can destroy your investments. However, if you want to learn details of when to invest in specific investment types (businesses, land, cash, stocks) and how to do it … you’ll need to continue your education. If you’re in line with this book’s recommendations, consider the link at the end of the book for the bonus material.
December 30, 2021
Must read for anyone starting their first real job
Well written and easy to read and comprehend. Time tested advice that more folks should know for a more secure financial future.
Well written and easy to read and comprehend. Time tested advice that more folks should know for a more secure financial future.
November 24, 2022
Good tips for investors.
January 19, 2024
Analyzing many misconceptions people are thinking about investing and more precisely about the stock market
February 19, 2024
Some Notes:
• Herd mentality is rooted in the fear of missing out (FOMO). (eg. Tulip Mania)
• No more greater fools (market peaked)
• Mark Twain: Buy land. They ain’t making any more of it.
• Herd mentality is rooted in the fear of missing out (FOMO). (eg. Tulip Mania)
• No more greater fools (market peaked)
• Mark Twain: Buy land. They ain’t making any more of it.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews