There’s an experiment I love to use to explain why Parkside Advisors practices passive management as an investment philosophy. When a group of people is shown a large jar of jellybeans and asked to guess how many jellybeans are in the jar, it’s rare that anyone nails the exact number. Some people will guess wildly high, some wildly low. Yet, if you aggregate all of the guesses and average them out, you will usually arrive at a pretty accurate number. A crowd of guessers is consistently more accurate than individuals. The same is true for investment strategy. While the commonRead More
Are Robo-advisors as Worthy as Real CFP® Professionals?
Recently I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about the rise in use of telemedicine companies. These “direct-to-consumer” online medical services provide inexpensive diagnoses that allow consumers to avoid high co-pays or deductibles. Patients instead call an “online doctor” and describe their symptoms. The doctor then makes a diagnosis and, in some cases, prescribes medication. According to the WSJ, the American Telemedicine Association expects more than a million calls to these types of services in 2016 alone. But without access to patients’ medical histories and in-person examinations, many telemedicine companies are issuing incorrect diagnoses. In a JAMA DermatologyRead More
Recommended Read: How Warren Buffett Is Beating the Hedge Funders
No one can argue with Warren Buffett’s investment prowess. He’s known as the most successful investor in the world, a businessman and philanthropist who is currently the third wealthiest person on the planet. Many people think of Buffett as an active investor who succeeds by picking the best stocks, but I disagree. What Buffett does is actively influence the success of the companies he supports through board seats and management influence. He limits his investments in companies to those industries he understands. Buffett’s success results from his business skills, not his ability to pick stocks. He endorses passive investing, andRead More
A 5-Step Remedy for Teen Affluenza
Perhaps you’ve heard about Ethan Couch, the 16-year-old boy who killed four people while driving drunk in Texas in 2013? His defense: teen affluenza, a debilitating social condition in which teens with financial privilege fail to develop the skills they need to properly understand the consequences of their actions. We all want the same thing for our kids: we want them to be happy, have their needs met, and be successful in life. Sometimes, though, an overemphasis on those first two things can derail the development of the third. For parents who are fortunate to be able to provide wellRead More