Investment Gurus

[JR8]

This begs the question, and what I say to these people when they call me, is who would trust their money to a stranger who contacts you and will not tell you how they got your information?

Good point!
Get your number put on the 'Do Not Call' register. Meanwhile any such calls note their company and the callers name. The register seems to kick-in after about 6-8 weeks.

[Brah]

The majority of these calls came to my work number, so they probably got a hold of, or someone sold them, the internal directory. Like brian_singapore some must have found me from LinkedIn but no idea how they got my number.

I just assume none of them are worth the risk, badly as I need one, but would prefer something word-of-mouth.

[Beeroclock]

Be careful leaving a business card in restaurants etc for the chance of a free lunch. Some of those bowls are for these advisors..... I know this because I met one and insisted at the start to know how he got my contact or I wouldn't proceed further with the chat and he told me this is one of the common methods they use!

[JR8]

^ Yes I have heard of both these two above methods being a source of 'hot leads'.

[Wd40]

In my opinion, unless you are a high net worth individual and want access to certain structured products and restricted private equity funds, you don't need a financial advisor or a private wealth manager.

All information about investment options is out there and the most critical thing that we lack is the discipline and the control of greed/fear emotions. This even an investment advisor cannot help. For example, if I went with an investment advisor who gave me some great ideas to build an awesome portfolio, but tomorrow is markets suddenly start tanking, I am not going to trust the investment advisor, I am going to sell, unless the amount in the portfolio is insignificant relative to my overall portfolio.

[Beeroclock]

The IPF seems a good strategy that would suit most people. I noticed on his later post in 2002 he changes it to 80-90% index instead of 60-80% index in the original article...

http://www.fool.com/news/foth/2002/foth020827.htm

As mentioned in the cpf thread, I'm also going for a hybrid of index and direct shares, but mine will be more than a few.

[zzm9980]

Can't say I follow them closely, but a few people I know who seem to be doing pretty well (yourself included) all strongly endorse fool.com.

I'm actually planning to follow something akin to this, except with a bit more of my company's stock in the mix (since I need to hold it as it vests for at least the full year to avoid shortterm capital gains): http://www.fool.com/news/foth/2000/foth000425.htm

I hadn't heard of that strategy before, but can see the logic of it from the linked article. I did a one-off search to see if they have a discussion forum for the strategy (my own choice of TMF (UK) strategy has two dedicated fora), but instead of getting a hit on that, I got distracted by ... http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2 ... 1&mrr=1.00 The latter seems to be an update or slight variant on your link, and I thought it might be of interest.

What I was actually hoping to find was a discussion board for the strategy, and from that, their board FAQ. If intending to follow the strategy I'd also trawl some recent months of discussion (esp. 'Well rec'cd' posts from that boards hard-core regulars) to try and get the latest views on what trackers people are using, and also how they have and are choosing their '+A Few'. IIRC the discussion boards on TMF-US became subscription-only in the early 00's though (when I, and several other long-timers quit and flipped to the UK version which remains free), so they may only be accessible if you 'Join'...

p.s. On TMF-UK there is a forum called 'Does Anyone Know' [DAK] where you can pose any (civil) question. It's for direct Q+A, not OT chatter, so focused and useful. I couldn't find an equivalent on TMF-US (just a weird discussion on the board 'Land Of Off Topic Posts' [LOOTP] about lactating women...
If interested you could ask on the UK version > http://boards.fool.co.uk/does-anybody-know-50937.aspx if there is a DAK on the US site, or indeed if anyone happens to know if there is a 'Index+A Few' forum on the US site. Some people post on both the US and UK sites, and the peeps on DAK tend to be very helpful... you would be amazed at some of most extraordinarily obscure stuff that can get answered there, so asking a question re: TMF itself should bear fruit!

Thanks Jr8! I will read that link, and when I have more time (in the middle of a busy side-project which will be a nice source of passive income if it bears fruit...) I will definitely spend more time reading on TMF and smoothing out a strategy.

[zzm9980]

The IPF seems a good strategy that would suit most people. I noticed on his later post in 2002 he changes it to 80-90% index instead of 60-80% index in the original article...

http://www.fool.com/news/foth/2002/foth020827.htm

As mentioned in the cpf thread, I'm also going for a hybrid of index and direct shares, but mine will be more than a few.

Unfortunately for me, over 50% of my annual income is in the from of RSU form my company, so my ratios will be way skewed. Lucky for me it's a pretty good stock to hold though. I'll also have to hold those shares after they vest for at least a full year to avoid short-term capital gains tax. After that, I'm currently selling 50-60% and putting it into this plan.

[GSM8]

Vanguard, Fidelity and most other US investment companies have begun strictly enforcing a policy of not letting US citizens living abroad invest in mutual funds if they truthfully declare their foreign address. Of course, one could try giving a relative's US address but that would not be completely legal and raises exposure to various liabilities

Exactly as per PNG post... just buy the ETF instead of the fund itself. I bought VAS ETF the other day, an Australian share index / with a US fund manager / bought by a Singapore resident address ... it is easily doable.

Which brokerage company did you use? I haven't been able to find any broker here who will open a trading account (even for stocks that are not subject to the PFIC morass of MFs) for a "U.S. Person" as SEC 15a-6 effectively prohibits it.

At the other end, US brokerages are threatening to close even existing stock trading accounts when a US citizen gets a foreign address.

[maneo]

Opened an Options Express last year using an old neighbour's address in the US.

Had to transfer my holdings over when my big name brokerage decided my account was suddenly too small for them to deal with.
Had compared rankings of many online brokers and found that they stacked up OK.


Edited to correct the story after checking what I really did.

[GSM8]

Was able to open an account with Options Express last year using my current "foreign" address and transferred my holdings over, when my big name brokerage decided my account was suddenly too small for them to deal with.

Had compared rankings of many online brokers and found that they stacked up OK.

Thanks, appreciate that tip. Just to reconfirm again, this was with options express US portal (dot com site) and not their Singapore site. My big name online brokerage in US has not kicked me out (yet) but they just curtailed transactions citing the foreign address

[maneo]

I have both an individual account and an IRA account on the optionsxpress{dot}com site.
However, it seems I used my old neighbour's address in the US when I set up the accounts.
I only get e-statements, so the physical address really doesn't matter.
(I guess it was too good to be true - looks like I took the easy way out when my previous broker kicked me out).
Sorry.

Didn't realise that there was an OX SG site.
Will they let you have the same access with an SG address?

If not and if you happen to have trustworthy relatives or friends back there, perhaps you could consider doing what I did.

My old neighbours are very good friends.
They collect whatever mail is sent for me, which I then pick up whenever I happen to go back.

[earthfriendly]

Okie, leading the way in low cost investing. In the news again.

"The cuts reinforce the nonprofit company's mission to produce strong returns for investors through keeping operational and management costs low, company executives said.

"Obviously there are going to be some advisers who think we are treading on their turf," said John Bogle, the 86-year-old founder and former chief executive of Vanguard told Reuters. "We've never been as directly competitive as this, but at some point you have to stand up for what you believe." "

http://news.yahoo.com/vanguard-price-cu ... 43171.html

And they are careful with their expenditure. The guardians of investors' hard-earned money. No extravagant advertising budget.

http://vanguardblog.com/2009/11/25/why-we-advertise/

[earthfriendly]

From the comments.

Jack Bogle is the most important person in the world of investing. His indexing philosophy has literally put 100's of billions of dollars into the pocket of investors big and small. Even those investors that have never invested thru Vanguard have benefited, since Vanguard has forced all mutual funds to lower their fees.

He is without a doubt one of the 10 most influential people in all of history. Unfortunately, the average person doesn't have a clue who he is or what he has accomplished.

Bogle and his company radiate competence and honesty.

I started investing with them about 17 (??) years ago. Put a single lump sum of $4000 and then $400/month for two years. I set it up on auto investment and forgot about it. It was many years later that I finally took a look at the balance and was shocked. I even asked my husband if they had made a mistake on my account . The power of compounding ! I call it the "Sleeping Beauty" investing. After the initial set up, I pretty much left it alone and was inactive. More than a decade later, woke up and decided to look into the account. I woke up to a pleasant surprise, staring right at me is Prince $$$$$ himself.

[JR8]

Come on, give us some meat on bone to chew on, what's it worth now?

I'll give a near parallel, time-wise:
I bought a flat in London in early 2002 with 15% down for say [scaled down, as absolute values aren't relevant] £100k, it's now worth £450-500k, mid-point 475. So turning 15k into a net 460k, about a 30-fold return. I'm not crowing, just illustrating a representative return from property. How do Vanguard's returns compare?

A downside to most mass-market products is the inability to leverage/gear them. Short term gearing can be dangerous, longer term with a long-term strategy, as with a mortgage, gearing is usually highly beneficial.