I’ve posted Entry #60 to my weekly Valuation-Informed Indexing column at the Value Walk site. It’s called We Need Higher Commissions on Non-Stock Investment Classes.
Juicy Excerpt: I didn’t want my money tied up in an high-risk asset class paying a poor long-term return and IBonds were at the time paying a government-guaranteed return of 3.5 percent real. All I needed was someone to bring me the papers to sign.
It was not a particularly easy task to find such a person.
The first person I asked assured me that there was someone at the bank who could handle that and then disappeared. The second person said he would need to check whether the bank was able to handle that sort of transaction. The third person said that she would need to check something out with a higher-up and that I would need to be a little patient. Could I possibly come back on another day?
No, I told her, it wouldn’t be convenient for me to come back another day. Off she went looking for someone to whom to hand the short straw.
As I waited, I looked at the walls. There were advertisements for stock investing services visible before me in every direction I turned. The desks were cluttered with pretty brochures describing all the wonderful things the back could do for me if only I could be persuaded to put my retirement money in the asset class likely to pay a lower return than IBonds.
John@ stocks paying high dividends says
In your article, I feel you are neglecting risk. There is risk involved in any instrument…and now, even US T Bonds (to a certain extent). Im sure all of the banks, treasuries, etc have complex models on calculating risk and loads of other factors for proper commissions.
Rob says
Thanks much for stopping by, John.
It’s of course possible that I am missing something. I certainly acknowledge that my investing ideas are unconventional. All of my work is rooted in the research of Yale Economics Professor Robert Shiller, whose book is described in its subtitle as a “revolutionary” new approach to understanding how stock investing works.
The nice thing about revolutionary stuff is that it opens up exciting new possibilities. The bad thing about revolutionary stuff is that, until you get enough people talking about it, you don’t have enough people looking for holes in your logic and thereby keeping you on the straight and narrow.
Anyway, I certainly am grateful to you for taking the time out of your day to share your thinking with us. My best wishes to you!
Rob