Five Questions That Put Me on the Spot
This is my 700th Getting Going column. To mark the occasion, I decided to interview myself.
But forget the softball questions. In these columns, it's easy for me to gloss over intellectual inconsistencies and tiptoe past thorny issues. But we aren't letting Clements get away with that today.
Want to make him squirm? Here are five questions you really ought to ask me.
1. Are you qualified?
I got my first full-time job in journalism shortly after my 19th birthday, I attended the world's best university (you, of course, immediately thought of Cambridge), I have worked in financial journalism since I graduated in 1985 and I have penned the Getting Going column for almost 10 years.
But am I qualified to be a financial adviser? Absolutely not. Then again, most full-time financial advisers aren't qualified, either.
The business of doling out investment advice isn't a profession in the way that, say, law or medicine are professions. Yes, you will find advisers who are Chartered Financial Consultants, Certified Financial Planners, Chartered Financial Analysts and Certified Public Accountants/Personal Financial Specialists.
But these folks are the exception. Like your trusty personal-finance columnist, most brokers and financial planners have had little or no formal training. It's a disgrace.
2. Why do you keep bashing brokers?
I have met plenty of brokers and financial planners who strike me as smart and ethical, and I would happily recommend these advisers to friends and family. But don't take that as a blanket endorsement of all brokers and planners. I think the whole business of buying investment advice stinks.
Not only does it cost too much, but there are precious few safeguards. If you are an uneducated investor and you wander into your local broker or financial planner's office, you could get great advice -- or you could end up losing your life's savings.
There's no way I am going to encourage readers to take that gamble. The risks are simply too great.
Trying to decide between hiring a local adviser and leaving your cash languishing in a hodgepodge of mutual funds? As far as I am concerned, it's no contest. Unless you are absolutely sure the adviser is highly qualified and entirely ethical, I would stick with the hodgepodge every time.
3. But aren't investors stupid?
Whenever I suggest that readers invest on their own, a raft of brokers and financial planners fill my inbox with angry e-mails. Their contention: My columns are worse than useless, because they're dishing out advice that most people are too clueless and too undisciplined to follow.
My response: I'll readily concede that there are people who have no business investing on their own. They save pathetically little, they panic when the market goes down, they chase hot investments -- and nothing I write could possibly help them. These folks would clearly benefit from hiring a good adviser (and, fingers crossed, maybe they'll find one).
But I have also met heaps of investors who have fared just fine on their own. In fact, I honestly believe more people should go this route.
To be sure, if you invest on your own, you won't always get it right. But at the same time, you will avoid the risks and the costs of using an adviser, and the cost savings will likely be greater than the cost of any mistakes you make on your own.
Moreover, if you manage your own money, you can still get help on occasion. Many advisers have started offering their services on an as-needed basis, at a cost of maybe $150 an hour. To locate one of these advisers, go to the site
www.garrettplanningnetwork.com or
www.myfinancialadvice.com.4. Why do you play the pundit?
As I have said many times in this column, I don't believe anybody can predict the market's short-term direction. Yet, despite such cautionary comments, I devote a fair amount of ink to recent market action.
With such columns, aren't I encouraging investors to focus on short-term results, just like every other overheated market pundit? Maybe I am guilty of that.
Truth is, I work for a newspaper and there's a certain amount of pressure to write stories that play off the news. I can argue that, by taking the latest market hiccup and using it as an excuse to remind readers of certain bedrock investment principles, I am helping to keep folks on the right track.
But often, I don't just focus on core principles. Instead, I go a little further, suggesting that maybe some parts of the market are more attractive than others. Useful advice? It probably isn't as useful as I like to think.
5. How's your own portfolio done?
I drink the same Kool-Aid I push. In other words, I own a broadly diversified portfolio composed almost entirely of market-tracking index funds.
For each market sector, I have a target portfolio weighting. For instance, I aim to keep 25% of my total portfolio invested in bonds and 75% in stocks, with 30% of my stock portfolio allocated to foreign markets. At least once a year, I rebalance back to these targets.
With this strategy, I tend to do a little better than the stock-market averages when stocks are falling and a little worse when stocks are rocketing higher. But either way, there's usually nothing very exciting about my portfolio's performance.
Nonetheless, at age 41, I have amassed more than half the money I need for retirement. Sure, keeping investment costs low and avoiding big investment mistakes has helped. But that isn't the main reason my portfolio has grown so much.
Instead, I got there by being a tightwad. Every time I have a few bucks to spare, I send it off to one of my index funds.
You won't get many Wall Street pundits boasting about their saving habits. But make no mistake: Saving like crazy has undoubtedly been my smartest investment strategy.
采访自己的五个问题
这是“投资参考”(Getting Going)专栏的第700篇文章。我打算对自己的进行一次专访，以做纪念。
以下这五个问题我认为是读者最应该问我的。
1. 你是否有资格担任“投资参考”专栏作家？
在我度过第十九个生日后不久，我就在新闻业找到了第一份全职工作，我上的是世界上最好的大学（当然，你立即会想到剑桥大学），从1985年毕业后，我就一直在做财经新闻，持笔“投资参考”专栏将近10年了。
但我是否有资格当一名理财顾问呢？绝对不行。同时我要再次强调，大部分全职的理财顾问也都不合格。
兜售投资理财建议这个行当和从事法律和制药等可完全不同。当然，你会找到一些持有特许理财顾问(Chartered Financial Consultant)、理财规划师(Certified Financial Planner)、特许金融分析师(Chartered Financial Analyst)或注册会计师／个人金融专家(Certified Public Accountants/Personal Financial Specialist)资格的理财顾问。
但这些人毕竟是例外。和你们所信任的个人理财专栏作家一样，大多数经纪商和财务规划顾问几乎都没有任何正规的训练。这真是一种很丢人的事。
2. 你为什么总在抨击经纪商？
我见过很多经纪商和理财顾问，他们给我的印象都是很有才华，而且有职业道德。我也很愿意将他们推荐给朋友和家人。但这并不是说所有的经纪商和理财顾问都是这样的。总的来说，我觉得花钱购买投资建议不是什么好事。
这样说不仅仅是因为投资理财建议非常昂贵，而且它们几乎没有给投资者任何的保障。如果你是一个没有太多投资知识的投资者，走进你的经纪商或理财顾问的办公室，你可能会得到一个非常好的投资建议，但你也有可能因为他们的话而失去毕生的积蓄。
所以，我是绝对不会鼓励我的读者去进行这场赌博的。其中的风险实在太大了。
你需要决定到底是聘请一个投资顾问，还是把钱放到一堆共同基金中去？对于我来说，这不算什么比较。除非你坚信理财顾问具有杰出才能而且完全具备职业，否则我还是建议你自己投资共同基金吧。
3. 难道投资者不愚蠢么？
每当我建议读者自主做出投资决定时，很多经纪商和理财顾问就会给我发来很多愤怒的电子邮件。他们认为我的专栏一无是处，因为我在专栏文章中提出的那些建议让大多数读者无可适从。
我的回答是：我得承认有很多人根本不能自己投资。他们的积蓄少得可伶，市场一跌他们惊慌失措，他们追逐的都是热门股票。如果是那样，我的文章根本帮不了他们。他们最好的选择就是聘请一个好的理财顾问（没准尔他们能碰上一个不错的）。
但是，我见到过很多靠自己投资也赚钱的投资者。我的确认为大部分投资者都应该像他们那样。
如果你自己拿主意投资，当然不可能总是正确的；但同时你也避免了聘请理财顾问的成本和他可能给你带来的风险。而你节省下来的成本很可能比你因自己的决策失误而产生的损失要多。
况且，如果你自己打理财富，你也一样能够得到帮助。很多理财顾问已经开始提供按需服务，可能每个小时收费150美元。要找这样一个理财顾问，你可以登录网站
www.garrettplanningnetwork.com或
www.myfinancialadvice.com。
4. 你怎么有时候和其他股评家一个腔调?
我在以前的文章中曾多次提到，我根本不相信有人能预测市场的短期走向。尽管我采取了谨慎的言辞，但我还是花了不少笔墨在市场近期的走势上。
这些专栏文章是不是也和其他市场评论家的论调一样，鼓励了投资者追求短期投资结果呢？对于这一点，我也许会感到内疚。
事实上，我为报纸工作，当然会面临围绕新闻写文章的压力。但我通过讲述市场最新的情况提醒投资者注意最基本的投资原则，希望帮助他们把握正确的心态。
但是，我往往不会仅阐述某些核心的投资原则。我会更深一步，提醒读者哪些市场领域可能比其他领域更具有吸引力。这样的建议是否有用呢？也许它们不像我希望的那么有用。
5. 你自己的投资组合情况如何？
我在个人投资方面身体力行。也就是说，我的投资组合非常分散，几乎包括所有追踪市场的指数基金。
每个市场领域在我的投资组合中都有其目标比例。比如，我希望我的投资组合中：25%是债券；75%是股票（其中30%要投资外国市场股票）。我至少每年会对我的投资组合做一次调整，保持这一投资目标比例。
采用这种策略，在股市不好时，我的投资组合的回报率会略高于大势；但当股市处于大牛市时，回报率就会略低于大势。但不管怎样，我的投资组合都不会大起大落。
不过在我41岁时，我就已经攒够了大部分退休要用的钱。我总是尽量降低交易成本，避免出现重大投资失误，但这些还不是我投资赚钱的主要原因。
真正的原因是我是一个吝啬鬼。每当我一点闲钱的时候，我就会把它们投资到我的指数基金里去。
很少有华尔街人士会大谈他们的攒钱习惯。但毫无疑问，疯狂攒钱仍然是我最明智的投资策略。
