What I’ve learned in 22 plus years of being a financial advisor is history repeats itself. In today’s post, I will share my thoughts on financial gurus who you would’ve seen a lot lately. I won’t mention their names, but you can probably figure out who I’m talking about. I’m not going to tell you not to listen to them, but just be very wary of what they say.
The first carnival barker is a guy who’s been on CNBC forever. These days he seems to be hyperventilating every time the market is down. But if you’ve been following him for a while, you’d notice that he’s deeply pessimistic or optimistic depending on the market sentiment, and that his overly exaggerated manner is a big part of his brand. So keep this in mind and take his words with a grain of salt.
The next clown is the eternal stock market pessimist bear / Gold optimist. You know the people who’ve been negative/wrong for the past 30 years will make their appearance when the markets get unsettled to tell you to buy Gold. Gold has its place in a diversified portfolio, but you also need other asset classes.
Third group is the “cash flow is king / debt is good” real estate investor people. So, commercial real estate rates are fixed for a period, then they typically go up if rates rise. Guess what rates are doing right now! We’ve had these people since the 90’s. If you want to look on YouTube for William McCorkle, you’ll see some of the people today that mirror him in the present day. His paid training videos are also on YouTube. He ended up doing 18 years in federal prison for fraud. Again I’m not saying real estate is bad, but it needs to be part of a diversified portfolio.
In the end, when the market is unsettled, take a deep breath, and look beyond the hype.