Gyroscopic Investing

I have been considering going back to school and getting some more financial education, in case I have to make an involuntary exit out of the oil industry next year.. I have a wealth adviser friend who has been trying to pull me into his practice. Having been through these oil industry cycles before, I did have the foresight to earn an MBA in 1992, back when I had the time and energy, and my employer paid for it. In order to practice as a wealth adviser, I'd of course need the FINRA Series 7 / 66 licenses, and then there is an alphabet soup of different certifications; CFP, CLu, CRPC, CMT, CPA,... and on and on.

Does anyone have any insight / opinions / commentary on which alphabet soup is valuable? Personally, I am drawn to Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor (CRPC). This whole collection of topics surrounding safe withdrawal rates, taxes, health insurance, annuities, legacy, philanthropy, estate planning is very fascinating, and crucially important to me and to people in my family.

So you're not going to jump straight off into lion taming?






Sorry, I couldn't resist the Monty Python reference.

I am in lion taming already. The lion is winning.

ochotona wrote: I am in lion taming already. The lion is winning.

Back to your financial education: do you think your MBA and previous education is related to your predilection for tinkering (i.e. not passively investing), or are those two things mutually exclusive?

dualstow wrote: Back to your financial education: do you think your MBA and previous education is related to your predilection for tinkering (i.e. not passively investing), or are those two things mutually exclusive?

No, not at all, because I was a passive investor from 1986 - 2015, then in my mid-50s I realized my exposure to sequence-of-returns risk, and I started to look for ways to decrease MaxDD and increase Sharpe and Sortino. I thought the Permanent Portfolio was it, then after gold and long Treasuries shocked me out, I realized it was not free of short term risk.

As I have written before, I'm still too early in my life to ease into the PP CAGR; I need more juice for another decade. I really do think a Faber / Antonacci approach is going to work for the bulk of my portfolio, with my 2015 - 2030 bucket of assets in a PP where the gold is gradually bought, and the Treasury maturities are gradually lengthened, so avoid shocks.

I really don't mind the whipsaw this year with the 200 day MA. As long as it's for a well-studied, well-documented reason, I don't mind doing it. Many authors have studied absolute momentum, it's a real thing.

I got a chance to go into the financial industry some years ago, and it was a career change for me. I had the Series 7 and 66 licenses and I was certified in mutual funds. This is what I learned, and I wished someone would have been honest with me. You are selling financial products. If you don't sell financial products, you are out the door. It has little to do with how smart you are and everything to do with selling financial products. I knew this guy who wasn't that bright but people liked him, he had the right personality and that's what counts.

I'll never forget my first day on the job-cold calling for clients. I called this lawyer and got a good cussing out. That was my real-life education in the financial field. Some guys are lucky and their fathers leave them a book-of-business. I wasn't that lucky. How will you get clients? Are you an extrovert? Will your conscious allow you to sell a financial product to someone if you need to meet this month's sells quota?

I passed the Series 7 and less than two weeks later the Dow hit an all-time high. When the fall of 2008 hit and the financial meltdown was happening (I was watching CNBC and the Dow was falling hundreds of points), I knew I didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of making it. My supervisor's wisdom to me was to make more cold calls.

I went through the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. It could happen again. I feel sorry for the guys who came after me when the market began to go up. God help them when the market goes down. It's not pretty.

Good luck.

Michael

Thanks for the advice. I'm in large account technical sales now, so I know what you mean about being smart vs. being an extrovert and a closer. 

The choices that lie before me are if oil stays where it is, and my current employer wrecks, I can leverage off of my existing MBA and financial knowledge and be a seller of financial products  and services somewhat quickly, or I can be unemployed or way underemployed for years at something I don't know anything about until the oil prices comes back up. So I choose the former. And being a CFP or whatever would be interesting.

ochotona wrote: Thanks for the advice. I'm in large account technical sales now, so I know what you mean about being smart vs. being an extrovert and a closer. 

Over lunch with a wealth manager friend, he said the CRPC certification was "lightweight", but agreed it could be a way to take a nibble at the subject matter. Cost is $1180 for an online course, takes about 10 weeks, and the curriculum looks interesting. And if you earn it, the online college lets you skip 1/3 of the CFP coursework. The CFP, by the way, costs $4800. Given how important retirement prep is, and wealth managers are expensive (1% fee), getting a CRPC could be an economical value-add for anyone who wants to self-manage their retirement process.

I mean, if you have only $118,000 in capital, avoiding a 1% AUM fee for one year pays for the course right then and there.



 

ochotona wrote: Over lunch with a wealth manager friend, he said the CRPC certification was "lightweight", but agreed it could be a way to take a nibble at the subject matter. Cost is $1180 for an online course, takes about 10 weeks, and the curriculum looks interesting. And if you earn it, the online college lets you skip 1/3 of the CFP coursework. The CFP, by the way, costs $4800. Given how important retirement prep is, and wealth managers are expensive (1% fee), getting a CRPC could be an economical value-add for anyone who wants to self-manage their retirement process.

I mean, if you have only $118,000 in capital, avoiding a 1% AUM fee for one year pays for the course right then and there.

You've lost me here. The easiest and quickest way to avoid that fee is to manage your investments yourself. Why would you need any certification to manage your own investments? 

Libertarian666 wrote: You've lost me here. The easiest and quickest way to avoid that fee is to manage your investments yourself. Why would you need any certification to manage your own investments? 

Investments are only part of what it takes to retire well. Click on the link, have a look at the syllabus. I think it will give you a well-rounded approach to the topic... except for the gold, of course.

I don't see anything there that I would want or need to pay $1180 for, but obviously everyone is different.

If you want to work in the industry, go for CFA.

If you just need advice for managing your own investments, trustworthy forums and blogs are you friend.

blackomen wrote: If you want to work in the industry, go for CFA.

Not a CFP ?

ochotona wrote:

blackomen wrote: If you want to work in the industry, go for CFA.

Not a CFP ?

CFP is fine too and one of the most respectable designations (in addition to CFA and CPA.)  Like the name suggests, it's best for a financial planner or advisor.

Thanks

The CRPC class is relatively easy and fun. A few time value of money brain teasers sharpened up my TVM calculation skills. It's a good review, and I am learning new things. But, as expected, NO discussion of precious metals / commodities as an investable asset class. And it downgrades "timing" as an investment strategy. To be expected. Definitely worth the money, even if I never use the designation as a professional. If the knowledge helps me to avoid one costly mistake, it was worth it.

BTW, the CFP I can't get, because it requires several years of financial industry experience. I am still in geoscience (ah... for the time being). It will all depend on the price of oil.

One day before the deadline, I tested and earned the CRPC designation. I learned quite a bit more than I expected, mostly around how the government is out to screw everything that moves. I'm glad I did it, I am certain it was worth the time and money. I would not have ventured into all of the curriculum topics by myself without the carrot-and-stick of extra letters to put in back of my name, and maybe failing a test. What I learned mostly did not overlap with my MBA, which surprised me. MBA students don't spend any time studying Social Security Retirement and Disability, Medicare / Medicaid, Pensions, etc. all vital for retirees.

Ochotona, MBA, CRPC

ochotona wrote:One day before the deadline, I tested and earned the CRPC designation. I learned quite a bit more than I expected, mostly around how the government is out to screw everything that moves. I'm glad I did it, I am certain it was worth the time and money. I would not have ventured into all of the curriculum topics by myself without the carrot-and-stick of extra letters to put in back of my name, and maybe failing a test. What I learned mostly did not overlap with my MBA, which surprised me. MBA students don't spend any time studying Social Security Retirement and Disability, Medicare / Medicaid, Pensions, etc. all vital for retirees.

Ochotona, MBA, CRPC

Congratuations! And, thanks for the analysis.

... Mountaineer

Estate planning basics, same sex marriages and domestic partnerships, income tax strategies, the list of government fostered pitfalls goes on and on... I leapt up in a rage when I realized my wife's Social Security is going to be dinged because of GPO WEP. I got sad when I saw all of the non-obvious mistakes my Dad made in his retirement which caused him to run out of money.

You don't know what you don't know, until you take a class.

ochotona wrote:Estate planning basics, same sex marriages and domestic partnerships, income tax strategies, the list of government fostered pitfalls goes on and on... I leapt up in a rage when I realized my wife's Social Security is going to be dinged because of GPO WEP. I got sad when I saw all of the non-obvious mistakes my Dad made in his retirement which caused him to run out of money.

You don't know what you don't know, until you take a class.

Sounds like it's worthwhile for my folks (approaching SS age) to seek out a CRPC. Any tips?

ochotona wrote:Ochotona, MBA, CRPC

MBA is about managing people/organizations, no?

I never heard of CRPC before you mentioned it, but it sure sounds more real-world useful than ChFC, CFA or Series xx.

There is no CRPC study guide from 3rd party vendors, but there are for the CFP. A CFP study guide from Amazon will expose you to what the CRPC covers, and more. The CFP is more ambitious than the CRPC. If you want the designation, the course is "only" $1200. Much less costly than Trump University.