Author: The MediFi Guy

You are guaranteed to lose money if you have a financial advisor “Alright, so I kind of understand the point about fees and stuff, but aren’t you being a bit hyperbolic when you say that you’re guaranteed to lose money? Surely that can’t be the case?” Let us revisit our previous example again: Notice the rate of return of “6%”. What does that mean? For this discussion, we’ll assume that the 6% is a *real return. *Tip: whenever you see “real x” in finances, it means x after you subtract…

Fee Fees Fees! One of the most important things to understand when it comes to investing. “How can I know whether something I invest in will have a good return?” Fees! Low fees have been shown to be the best predictor of a high future return. A better predictor than past performance, current performance, or any theoretical future predicted performance. Low fees are the only proven consistent predictor of a good future return! Knowing this, it is imperative that you keep your investment fees as low as humanly possible when…

Many financial advisors are linked to particular companies and are authorized to sell the products of that company. Every time they successfully sell the product, they receive a commission from the sale. That’s why in many cases it’s free to meet and talk to a financial advisor. They get paid by the company once they successfully sell you the product. This incentivizes the FA to push a whole host of products onto you that may have little to no benefit to you given your circumstances, and at worst may actively…

Hey, med student bro! How’s your net worth looking nowadays? I’ve been thinking of dollar cost averaging into a total return stock market index-linked ETF in my tax-advantaged accounts, but I’m not happy with the level of intra-asset class diversification within the fund. Maybe it’s the market cap weighting they’re using? Not to mention I find the small hedge fund allocation a bit unsettling. Maybe I should consider de-risking a bit and adding an inflation-linked bond index fund as well? However, the bond yields have been on a downward trend…

The Four Horsemen of your Financial Apocalypse: The financial advisor The car salesman The private banker The insurance broker The Financial Advisor “What’s wrong with having a financial advisor? Shouldn’t I get an expert to help with all this confusing financial stuff? I mean if you can’t do something yourself, you hire an expert to do it for you, right?” The reasons you should carefully consider whether the services of a financial advisor are in your best interest before signing up with one can be summarised as follows: 1) Everything…