6 Reasons Why It Pays To Be Your Own Financial Expert

The Hidden Conflicts Of Interest That Financial Advisors And Investment Media Don't Want You To Know – Revealed!

If you want to learn how to be a more profitable investor, there is no better way to start than by educating yourself about the problems with advice from financial experts.

Most people don't understand all the problems inherent in the financial advice they receive. They are not aware of the bias caused by the advisor's current portfolio positions, or his need to sell products and services, or any other self-interests that might make his expert advice less than impartial. Instead, most people follow the investment media and listen to professionals with the mistaken belief that expertise somehow assures good results.

It doesn't.

The truth is there are a lot of underlying problems making advice from financial experts less reliable than most investors believe.

Expert advice is plagued with conflicts of interest.
Expert advice is often incomplete or inaccurate.
Expert advice can limit independent thinking.
Experts can be dishonest.
Experts can be self-deceived.
The whole idea of an investment expert is incongruent with the probabilistic nature of investing.

"An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today."

Laurence J. Peter

In this article we will examine each of these problems in greater detail. In the process you will learn why you shouldn't trust outside yourself for financial decisions, which means the only viable alternative is to trust in yourself.

The following pages will explain the exact reasons why there is no real alternative to becoming your own financial expert. Yes, investing is complex and it takes work to become your own financial authority, but there really is no other choice. The alternative (trusting financial experts) has too many inherent flaws to justify risking your financial future.

Below we will examine each of the problems underlying financial advice from experts so that you can decide how much trust you want to place in their wisdom…

Financial Experts Provide Incomplete Or Inaccurate Advice

Webster's dictionary defines an expert as "a person with a high degree of skill or knowledge about a certain subject, or one demonstrating great skill, dexterity, or knowledge as a result of experience or training." We intuitively believe an expert should excel in his specialized field and provide greater results than an amateur.

However, research study after research study proves the opposite is true. For example, on New Year's Day in 2002, the venerable and trustworthy Wall Street Journal published its annual survey of economists for the upcoming year. Despite the fact that the economy had already been weak for nearly a year not one of the 55 economists believed a serious decline was ahead. Every single one of them was wrong – 55 out of 55 experts – a 100% failure rate. Even a PhD provides zero immunity from the fallacy of expert opinion.

"An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field."

Niels Bohr

This is just one of many studies documenting the failure of expert opinion. You can also find numerous studies published showing the under-performance of professionally managed mutual funds compared to their passive index cousins. What that means is the stock picking experts running these funds have failed to show superior performance. Additionally, I've documented many other studies showing the failure of financial experts in this post here. There is no shortage of research proving the fallibility of expert financial opinion.

Not only are experts fallible but much of the financial advice they offer is incomplete. For example, the next time a talking head on CNBC tells you to buy his latest stock pick make sure to ask yourself how you will know when to sell if things don't work out? How are you going to know when he is wrong? When should you add to the position if he is right? How much of your portfolio should you allocate to his great stock pick? What investment goals and risk tolerances are compatible with his recommended advice? Did he cover all that during his 60 second sound-bite where he touted his latest, greatest stock advice? I didn't think so…

Telling you what to buy or when to buy is only one small piece of the investment equation. For a complete approach to assess the quality of investment advice see this article. It provides a complete solution to the problem of incomplete investment advice.

Financial Expert Conflicts Of Interest

Not only do you run the risk of receiving incomplete or inaccurate financial advice from experts, but often the advice is tainted by hidden financial incentives causing a conflict of interest. Always remember that you can't judge the quality of an expert's advice until you know the financial incentives hiding behind that advice. Consider the following questions…

Does the advisor personally have a position in the security recommended?
Does the advisory firm have a business relationship with the company recommended?
Has the advisor been taught and trained by a firm with financial incentives to promote certain investment products?
Does the advisor make more if you buy that security than competing, comparable securities?
The list goes on and on…

The history of conflict of interest in financial advice is well documented with numerous examples because the economic incentive to deceive is so high. Every month new allegations emerge of hidden incentives biasing investment advice. Some high profile cases from the past include Dan Dorfman leaving his reporter jobs for Money magazine and CNBC after unproven allegations of behind the scenes kickbacks for promoting stock stories in the media. Another high profile case was the Merrill Lynch $100 million dollar, multi-state, settlement for alleged wrongdoing regarding conflicts of interest between the investment advice they gave brokerage clients and their investment banking relationships with the companies they promoted.

"The biases the media has are much bigger than conservative or liberal. They're about getting ratings, about making money, about doing stories that are easy to cover."

Al Franken

I mention these two cases not to pick on Merrill Lynch or Dorfman because these are just two examples of many similar cases. Instead, I chose these two because they were both high profile examples demonstrating how no expert resource is too big or trustworthy to be free of bias and conflicts of interest. If a nationally syndicated columnist and a top investment bank can't be trusted then who can you trust?

If you think the answer is your neighborhood broker then look more carefully. Every year the financial periodicals report similar problems with local brokers accused of recommending stocks to the public when their firm has an investment banking relationship with the company, and recommending stocks that the analyst owns or the brokerage firm holds a large position in. The list of wrong-doings by neighborhood brokers includes churning accounts, recommending inappropriate investment products, promoting high cost products that generate fees when low cost products perform just as well, and much more. For a complete analysis of conflicts of interest in financial advice resulting from compensation incentives and how to protect yourself see this article.

Furthermore, some conflicts of interest by financial experts are not immediately obvious. The seemingly unbiased university professor calling for the demise of capitalism may have a hidden incentive to offer eye-catching headlines in order to promote his latest book to the best-seller list. High profile economists whose paychecks are supported by banking and financial institutions may be reticent to give an honest assessment about the seriousness of the latest financial downturn and how it will affect the banking stocks. Sometimes the expert may not even be aware how his positive opinion about a stock is largely affected by the fact that he already owns the stock and is emotionally committed to the position. This is perhaps the most insidious type of expert bias.

Here is a fun video illustrating the problem…

Straight Talk – Stock Market
by senatork

In fact, it doesn't matter how prominent the expert or their pedigree – they all have bias and conflicts of interest. When Warren Buffett provided his calming words during the peak of the 2008 banking crisis and took out full page ads we should remember he was reported to own 300 million shares of Wells Fargo stock. When Bill Gross lobbied the U.S. Government in 2008 to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac it was reported that 61% of PIMCO holdings were invested in mortgage backed securities. Were these two high profile, well respected experts offering their infinite wisdom for our greater good, or were they using the media to sway public opinion in an effort to defend their portfolios?

The truth is the financial services industry as a whole – which includes all banks, brokers, real estate firms, lenders, and everything in between – has a massive vested interest in maintaining your confidence in the investment system they earn their living from. They all have products to sell and will go out of business if you no longer trust them. No matter how intelligent, educated, knowledgeable and trustworthy they may appear, they all make a living selling you a financial product or service. They are all inherently biased so buyer beware.

"If stock market experts were so expert, they would be buying stock, not selling advice."

Norman Augustine

You would be wise to always ask yourself the following questions when receiving financial advice:

"What is the motivation of the person saying this?"
"How does he get paid?"

Ask these questions whether the source is your local broker, CNBC, an investment newsletter, financial periodical, or even this website. Remember, you can't judge the quality of the financial advice until you know how the financial expert's pockets are lined. Don't allow yourself to be unduly influenced by financial experts without first considering the numerous potential sources of bias and conflict of interest that might drive their public statements and actions.

In order to do this you must develop some level of financial skill yourself.

Expert Financial Advice Reduces Your Critical Thinking

Another reason to become your own financial expert is to avoid the numbing impact of expert advice on your own critical thinking. A recent study led by Gregory Berns and discussed in Wired, Discover, and CNN showed that when research subjects were given expert opinions they ceased using areas of their brains associated with critical thinking. "It's almost as if the brain stops trying to make a decision on its own", said Berns during a CNN interview when discussing the effect of expert opinion. This can be extraordinarily dangerous when investing.

For example, during the study college students were asked to make a financial choice between a guaranteed payment or a riskier alternative with a higher payoff. One group was left to solve the problem on their own while the other group was given bogus advice from an expert (an authority economist counseling the Federal Reserve). The students independently thinking for themselves reasoned the probabilities using critical thinking areas of their brains while the group receiving expert advice tended to follow the incorrect advice while suppressing critical thinking. Amazing!

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices."

William James

What makes this study so important is most people believe they integrate expert advice with their own critical thinking in order to make a well-reasoned decision, but Berns believes otherwise." Normally, the human brain uses a specific set of regions to figure out the trade-offs between risk and reward, but when an expert offers advice on how to make those decisions, we found that activity in these regions decreases," said Berns in a CNN interview.

In other words, we tend to defer to experts. This makes sense because we believe they know more than us. It would be logical if the investment advice was trustworthy. Unfortunately, for all the reasons cited in this article that just isn't true.

Therefore, it is essential that you avoid the problem of suppressing your critical thinking and deferring to expert opinion by becoming your own financial expert. You must learn to trust your judgement and perform your own due diligence. You must think critically and not blindly accept expert opinion.

Beware The Dishonest Financial Expert

As if bias, inaccuracy and conflicts of interest weren't enough problems, now we must consider the potential for outright dishonesty by financial experts. As much as we would like to believe otherwise, not all people are honest – experts included. That's not to say everyone is dishonest either: we are not alarmists here at Financial Mentor. Instead, it means you can't trust blindly just because someone is famous, wears a suit, works for a reputable firm, or appears trustworthy for any reason whatsoever. You must rely on your own expertise by completing your due diligence and investigating further.

For example, wholeadvice.com did their own due diligence on Barrons annual roundup of the nation's top 1,000 financial advisors when they assembled a report on Pittsburgh's top advisors. You would think a reputable publication like Barrons would include only reputable advisors in a "Top 1000" list. Well, Wholeadvice.com's due diligence found some advisors from this list with multiple customer dispute claims including one for losses of more than $600,000 and another for misrepresentation.

Hmmm, these are the nations top financial advisors? Would you trust your money to them? Many people do and have no idea what problems are occurring because they never completed their own due diligence.

Another self-proclaimed financial expert, John T. Reed, who is not without his own share of controversy, has assembled an interesting list of real estate experts that I will partially excerpt from here to further illustrate why you must always do your own due diligence before trusting expert financial advice. Please note that the authors listed below achieved notoriety and fame during the prior real estate boom by teaching you how to be prosperous…

Albert Lowry, author of "How You Can Become Financially Independent By Investing In Real Estate," declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 1987.
Wade Cook, author of "How To Build A Real Estate Money Machine" and numerous other money making titles, declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 1987 and 2003.
Charles Givens, author of "Wealth Without Risk," was successfully sued by a former customer for bad financial advice and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 1995.
Ed Beckley, author of "Million Dollar Secrets," declared bankruptcy in 1987 and was sentenced to federal prison for wire fraud.
Robert Allen, the author of "Nothing Down" and "Creating Wealth," declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy in May 1996.

Hmmm, something just doesn't seem right if the guys teaching you how to build wealth are declaring bankruptcy – sort of like the Lasik surgery doctor who wears glasses or the fat guy running a diet clinic. The contradiction undermines your confidence in the advice provided.

Also, it is important to remember this is only a partial list. I chose only the big name authors, but the actual list of authors with major financial and legal problems is much, much longer. The lesson is clear: just because someone has a book or appears in the media as an expert does not mean they know what they are talking about or can be trusted. Conversely, it also doesn't mean all experts writing books are crooks.

What it does mean is you must always complete your own due diligence. You must become your own financial expert because you can't pay someone enough to care more about your money than their own.

Caveat emptor.

The Consensus View Expert Is Also Dangerous

Many of you may be thinking, "Todd, that's all fine and dandy but my broker is an honest guy and none of this applies to my situation." That's probably true – most financial advisors are honest people trying to provide a genuinely valuable service. But that still doesn't mean you should trust your financial future to them.

The problem is your advisor is probably preaching Wall Street's latest consensus wisdom to buy and hold for the long term. This has become the universally accepted truth adopted by nearly every financial advisor – probably including yours. (For more on the buy and hold myth click here). It has become the "sacred cow" of the financial world and is considered beyond reproach. Most people believe that adhering to the standard practices of the experts by buying and holding a diversified portfolio is the right thing to do.

Believe it or not, I disagree. Yes, I am confronting the sacred cow of Wall Street. I believe buy and hold is only appropriate for certain investors who understand and accept the extraordinarily high risk and poor risk to reward ratios inherent in this strategy. Based on historical evidence a passive buy and hold investor should expect to endure occassional 50% losses to achieve single digit compound returns net of inflation. Why that has been accepted as the "best" investment solution for all investors at all times eludes me. It makes no sense.

With that said, however, long-term buy and hold can be a useful investment strategy when market valuations approach low levels. In other words, buy and hold is not the "one size fits all" investment strategy that most financial advisors preach – instead, it is a special case investment strategy that should be used only when appropriate. Please note: this position is diametrically opposed to the consensus opinion provided by the vast majority or resources giving you financial advice.

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices, but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thought in clear form."

Albert Einstein

You may be tempted to criticize me for disagreeing with the consensus, but before you commit that criticism to writing please realize I have successfully taken on the consensus view several times before – and been right. For example, most experts agreed up until 2006-2007 that real estate "never goes down". The data was clear and the conclusion was obvious for everyone to see – until real estate crashed beginning in 2007. I disagreed and sold my investment real estate in 2006. That sacred cow is now hamburger.

The experts also piled on the bandwagon during the 1990's run-up in technology stocks declaring a "new era" where old valuation standards no longer made sense. The ensuing decline caused many tech investors 70%-80% losses that they still have not recovered from. I owned no tech stocks during the decline. (Full disclosure: I also didn't own them during the run-up in the late 1990's because they were insanely valued long before they crashed.)

You may believe buy and hold will endure where the other consensus viewpoints failed, but I don't think so. It is just the current consensus that will be proven wrong in the future – just like the previous "truths". It is just as fundamentally flawed as the previous consensus views and will face the same fate.

The reason consensus viewpoints come and go is because most financial experts are not deep thinkers about money and investing – they are practical businessmen.They sell what people think they want – not what they need. That is why mutual funds advertise their biggest performers: it attracts sales even though every study shows previous top performing funds tend to under-perform in the future. It is practical business, but it is lousy investing.

Humans are social animals with a propensity toward herding. The fact that everyone believes an idea is true converts that idea into truth through the mechanism of social proof. It becomes the consensus view, and only a fool (like me) would oppose that consensus view. A practical businessman will align himself with that "truth" because it is easier to make the sale when the customer already believes what you are saying – even if it is wrong. Such is the power of consensus viewpoint.

"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions."

Albert Einstein

That is why nearly all financial planners and brokers recommend you own a diversified buy and hold portfolio - it is the consensus viewpoint. The practical businessman knows it is easy to sell. After all, everyone knows it is "investment truth" beyond reproach so who is going to argue with you. If your portfolio loses money it was just an unfortunate, temporary setback – a brief aberration. The advisor did nothing wrong because everyone knows "buy and hold a diversified portfolio" is the right thing to do … right?

The practical businessman sells what is most profitable for his business even if it is not most profitable for his clients. This is not some diabolical conspiracy theory – it is just the way business works. Heck, most financial advisors are genuinely caring people who fully believe that what they are doing is the right thing. They have great hearts and are as honest as the day is long. However, they also believe the consensus view is correct – and that is the problem. They are not bad people and they are not dishonest: they are just part of the consensus and their expert opinion contributes to that consensus.

Let me repeat that point because it is critical to understand. Most financial advisors are honest, caring people doing their level best with 100% integrity to serve your needs. The problem is that means nothing when their beliefs are consistent with the consensus viewpoint. That is the fundamental problem.

The reason that is true is because the consensus viewpoint can never be the most profitable investment strategy for the client because security prices are determined by supply and demand. Any viewpoint that is consensus must, by definition, represent peak demand and premium pricing – the exact opposite of what a smart investor should be buying. By definition, the consensus viewpoint is not a good value; yet, that is what most financial experts recommend. It happened with tech stocks in the 90's, real estate in 2006, and it is happening right before your eyes with buy and hold.

The problem is profitable opinions by definition will be unpopular due to the nature of supply and demand. That is not what practical businessmen seeking to maximize business profits (as opposed to your portfolio profits) will attempt to sell. Stated simply, profitable investing requires occasionally going against consensus opinion when it becomes extreme; however, a profitable investment advisory business requires support for the consensus opinion. That is why mutual fund companies and brokerages promoted technology stocks and funds in the late 1990's – it sells well.

I can still remember when I sold my investment real estate in 2006 and payed the taxes on the gains because I wanted to go to cash rather than reinvest. Amazingly, not one person agreed with me (except my wife, bless her heart), and many "experts" went so far as to claim my decision was foolish. After all, the consensus view back then was real estate never goes down and the boom showed no signs of ending.

Similarly, I can remember coaching one of my clients in the late 1990's on risk management issues because his entire fortune was invested in tech stocks. My message to develop a sell discipline to manage risk was completely out of sync with the consensus view but also correct. His response was to fire me as his financial coach, and then he went on to lose almost everything in the market decline that followed. Such is the appeal of the siren song of consensus, expert opinion.

"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."

John F. Kennedy

You are inundated every day by the consensus viewpoint of financial experts. It is nearly impossible to escape the onslaught of mundane, superficial, consensus opinion masquerading as financial expertise. Consensus view and the natural herding instinct of human beings is a dangerous factor that negatively affects the quality of advice offered by even the most honest, caring, and best intentioned financial experts. Even if they pass every other hurdle listed in this article, they are rarely immune from the practical needs of business and the consensus viewpoint. It is a difficult conundrum for even the best experts to escape.

Again, your only solution is to develop your own, independent investment viewpoint and always complete your own due diligence on the financial experts you choose to employ. At some level, you must become your own financial expert. There really is no alternative if financial security is your goal.

Why Financial Experts Are Always Fallible – Regardless Of Their Track Record And Knowledge

Please be clear that my purpose is not to insult financial experts or put down the financial advice industry. That serves nobody – least of all me since I'm also part of the very group I'm warning you about. They make mistakes and I make mistakes. We are all fallible.

"Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices."

Laurence J. Peter

What I am trying to do is educate you about the fundamental problems underlying the financial advice business and make you aware that no expert is immune to these issues – including me. I'm trying to help you see why there is no choice but to become your own financial expert, do your own investment due diligence, and come to your own, independent investment decisions.

In other words, the point of this article is not to insult financial experts but instead to use the inherent weaknesses built into the financial advice system to motivate you to stop trusting others and start educating yourself.

I would like to tell you there is a viable alternative to becoming your own financial expert that is easier and requires less work on your part, but I would be lying. Believe me, if such an alternative existed I would already be using it because I always prefer easier solutions when available. Unfortunately, no such easy solution exists. There is no royal road to consistent investment profits.

Experience has taught me the path to financial success requires independent investing which means I must continually educate myself to improve my investment decision process. It is not the easiest path, but I believe it is the most effective, secure, and personally rewarding path.

If you are not similarly convinced that financial experts can't be relied upon to provide a financial "gravy train" then this last point should drive the nail in the coffin. It doesn't matter how wise, honest, and educated your investment advisor is, you can never completely depend on his expert advice because investing is a probabilistic process where certainty is impossible. Your chosen expert will be wrong at some point in the future with 100% confidence.

In other words, next time you watch a talking-head expert on CNBC securely proclaim how his latest, greatest stock pick will outperform the market make sure to keep in the back of your head that there is no possible way he can know with anything near the level of certainty he is projecting that what he says is true. It is impossible.

The reason is because investing is at best a probabilistic outcome. Nobody knows with certainty what will happen in the future because the future is unknowable. No financial expert ever really knows what will happen because there are just too many variables and inputs affecting the ultimate outcome – many of which have yet to occur in the future. Every investment is a bet on an unknowable future so certainty is 100% impossible. Every investment is at best just a probability, and every expert bet can always be wrong – mine included.

We may choose to believe the education and experience of financial experts increases the certainty and accuracy of their opinions, but we have little evidence to support that opinion and lots of evidence that contradicts it. The term "expert" implies accuracy of opinion, but the very nature of investing into an unknowable future denies that possibility.

"My definition of an expert in any field is a person who knows enough about what's really going on to be scared."

P. J. Plauger

The truth is an "investment expert" is an oxymoron like "government intelligence". There can never be any certainty at investing therefore nobody can truly be held out as an expert (in the true sense of the word) - myself included. That is why I always advocate risk management as the most important investment discipline. You can make educated guesses but ultimately everybody gets to be wrong. That is why you must always manage the risk – to control losses when the inevitable occurs. It is also why I use quality of risk management disciplines as the first criteria in judging anyone holding themselves out as a financial expert.

In Summary…

The unfortunate truth is advice dispensed by financial experts faces a mountain of problems.

Financial experts have conflicts of interest.
Financial experts provide incomplete or inaccurate advice.
Expert advice limits your critical thinking abilities.
Financial experts may be dishonest.
Financial experts may be self-deceived.
The whole idea of a "financial expert" is incongruent with the probabilistic nature of investing.

When you add these six factors together it creates an inescapable conundrum that no financial expert is immune from – and neither are you.

Yet everyday someone will think nothing of handing over their entire life savings to a guy wearing a suit based on little more than a referral, a glossy brochure, and a standardized computer printout filled with pie charts and analyst recommendations. Why do people do this?

It seems reasonable to believe a trained expert should do better than you at investing. You want to believe they know something you don't – that these experts operate in a confident world of certainty different from your own confusion and uncertainty. After all, don't they have connections to resources you will never have? Aren't they insiders with special knowledge and training? Somebody has to be an expert at all this stuff and know what they are doing! So we hand over the responsibility of our money to experts in the hope they know what they are doing.

What we forget when we do this is all the conflicts of interest, bias and other problems mentioned in this article that taints the expert financial advice you receive and diminishes the value of that specialized knowledge. We forget that you can never pay someone enough to care more about your money than his own. It makes no sense to trust the experts when you know better; yet, it is all too common.

Now you know better.

"Where facts are few, experts are many."

Donald R. Gannon

My own opinion is there's really no such thing as an "expert" at investing. Sure, some people have more training and experience than others, but investing is different from other fields. Investing is a probabilistic process that works with an unknowable future; thus, it is antithetical to the whole concept of expertise. In fact, true investment expertise is noteworthy for its recognition of inherent ignorance and consequent reliance on risk management disciplines to protect and grow capital rather than on any statement of superior knowledge.

Yes, investing is complex. Yes, it takes work to learn about investment strategy. Unfortunately, if your goal is financial security you really have no choice. You must take responsibility for your financial life. The alternative (trusting the experts) is too riddled with problems to rely on. If you can't trust outside yourself then the only viable alternative is to trust in yourself. That is the message of this article in a nutshell.

Think for yourself. Educate yourself. Be independent. That is the path of a successful, independent investor on the journey to financial freedom. I hope it will be your path as well.

Disclosure

I would be remiss if I wrote an entire article from the position of a financial expert discussing all the conflicts of interest in advice from financial experts without disclosing my own.

As stated in the article, the key to discerning an expert's biases and conflicts is to understand how his pockets are lined. How does he make his money?

My primary source of income is my investments – not this business. However, this publishing business does provide additional income through the sale of financial coaching services, ebooks and related education.

What that means to you is my investment portfolio will bias my financial advice since the beliefs expressed in my writing will be congruent with the positions in my portfolio. Frankly, I'm okay with that bias because it aligns our mutual best interests.

Regarding this web site, I have an obvious bias to sell you my financial education products and services since that is how I get paid. No mystery there.

Notice that I have taken great pains to not have any hidden conflicts of interest by choosing to not sell investment products or services on the same platform where I give advice. All I sell at Financial Mentor is education. That is because I believe investment education and investment product sales must be kept separate to minimize the inherent conflict of interest. You can learn more about my views on this subject in this article.

Hope that helps…