3 Problems with the Financial Services Industry

Here are the main problems with the financial services industry as I see it:

1. Broker/Client Interests are NEVER Aligned

You may be asking, “Well if I make more money doesn’t my broker make more money? And isn’t that good for the both of us?”

Theoretically, yes. However, as long as an adviser is paid based on the number of trades you make or the amount of money you keep in your account then he or she is NEVER motivated to do well for you.

They are not paid based on how well your stocks perform – whether or not your account goes up or down they still get paid a commission every single time you buy and sell a stock.

That’s like having a car mechanic who gets paid for the number of times he fixes your car – he’ll just make sure it stays broken for as long as possible and will continue to steal your money!

2. It’s Never About Making You Wealthy

The other thing to realize is that the people who work on Wall Street don’t want you to become insanely wealthy. If that happened then there’s a chance you’d leave them.

There’s a chance you’d stop playing the game.

So why would they try to make you wealthy? Answer: they won’t!

Instead they feed you products like Mutual Funds and Index Funds so you’ll just mimic the market and do average! Not good, not bad, just average.

3. They Always Keep Control

And one of the biggest scams that Wall Street has going for them is that they convince the investing public that investing on their own is dangerous. They convince everybody that in order to do well you need an army of analysts and bankers to tell you which stocks are good and which stocks are bad. Then, and only then, can you profit in the market!

If that were the case then why do most Mutual Funds have a tough time beating the market? And on the flipside of that argument, why does the most successful investor in the history of the world have an office of only 8 people?

Bottom line: There’s no good reason why you can’t do just as well investing on your own if you equip yourself with the right information!

Blurring The Line

As you can see there’s a serious problem in this business – there’s always a clear line in the sand: “you” and “them”. It’s never “us”.

We need to change that and we need to change it fast. We need to come up with a way where you and those you take advice from are sitting on the same side of the table.

The only way that gets done is if we change the nature of the client-advisor relationship – it can no longer be a “one way relationship”, it has to become a relationship of reciprocation, a “two way relationship”. Let me explain what I mean…

As of right now what happens when you buy a stock?

Your broker calls you (or vice versa) and rattles off a couple of stocks – you pick the one that sounds best and you buy it. That’s a one directional relationship – your advisor pushes information toward you.

Now, think about it this way – what if you could sit down at the same table as your advisor and have him teach you his process for digging through stocks?

Well, we know that would never happen due to the reasons we talked about before – if they gave away the “secret sauce” then you wouldn’t need them anymore. If they showed you how to invest, then you could go off and do it on your own.

Well, for most established companies in this industry that logic makes a lot of sense – it wouldn’t be in their best interests to make you a great investor. It would be in their interests to make you dependent upon them.

That's why I'm so excited about what we're doing at TickerHound - we have a distinct advantage here and that’s why our perspective on the situation is dramatically different from most. Our business isn’t predicated upon keeping you (and other individual investors) under our control.

We want to set the information free and allow you to live up to your fullest investing potential!

There are other companies in this space doing the same thing - Covestor.com, CakeFinancial.com, Wikinvest.com - all great companies and all looking to do the same thing: level the playing field so the individual investors out there have a shot at taking their financial futures into their own hands and making better financial decisions today!

Psychics, Fortune Tellers and Investment Advisors

You may be looking at the title of this article and scratching your head wondering: what do Psychics, Fortune Tellers and Investment Advisors all have in common?

Well, for one thing they all try to predict the future in one form or another. Psychics and Fortune Tellers supposedly use some type of extra-sensory perception to see into the future. They use tools like tarot cards, crystal balls and chanting in order to tell you what your future holds.

Will you be rich? Will you live a long life? Plenty of people out there turn to psychics and fortune tellers for answers to these questions.

Now you’re probably thinking, “Ok Wayne, what does that have to do with investment advisors?”

Answer: PLENTY!

Instead of using crystal balls and cards with funny symbols on them, investment advisors use charts and financial statements. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that investment advisors, stock brokers and money managers are a far cry from the 1-900-PSYCHIC people you see on TV. But that’s not what’s important…what’s important is WHY people feel the need to rely on these “predictors of the future” in the first place.

Why do we, as human beings, feel the unending need to know about the future?

In fact, I’ll share a little tidbit of information with you – human beings are the ONLY animals that conciously plan for the future. And not knowing what our future holds gives us a TREMENDOUS amount of anxiety. So much so that we do everything in our power (and mostly through the “power” of others) to plan for, predict and try to control our futures.

And that’s why fortune tellers, psychics and investment advisors are so successful – they truly understand human nature and they PREY UPON IT! They prey upon your desire to know your future, they prey upon your desire to profit or protect yourself from your future…and most of all, they prey upon your anxieties and insecurities about the fact that you CANNOT control your future.

They tell you that since you can’t protect yourself from, predict or control your future that you should rely on them, “the experts”, to do that for you. And there’s something very comfortable in doing that. It allows people to relieve themselves of the responsibility of their future circumstances.

Didn’t become rich? Well the fortune teller was wrong, not you.

Lost money in the market? Your broker was wrong, not you.

And that is precisely the psychology that MUST change in order for individual investors to break free from the shackles of the “Wall Street Regime”. Investors must realize that they have the power, the intelligence and the ability to do better than the rest of the market.

Your brokers, your money managers and even the “professional mutual fund managers” all try to mimic the market. If they performed as well as the S&P, they brag about it and are given monstrously large financial incentives to do so. In what other profession does somebody get so handsomely rewarded for simply doing AVERAGE?

My friend, we are taught to do AVERAGE in grade school!

If you want to do ABOVE average…if you want to be an extraordinary investor…if you want to unlock those shackles and break out into the world of TRUE FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE then you have to stop relying on these “stock market fortune tellers” and start empowering yourself!

And maybe you’ve already made that leap – maybe you’ve already taken the responsibility, shed your fears and made the decision to take control of your financial future. If you have, then congratulations! You’re one of the rare few and you deserve all of the rewards coming to you.

But if you haven’t made that leap yet, if you haven’t decided to put yourself in a position to prosper then I ask you – in fact, I CHALLENGE you to make that leap today.

The only way to shed those chains and become an independent and successful investor – one who outperforms the “herd” – is to equip yourself with as much information as possible. You have to take the time and make the effort to educate and empower yourself as an investor.

In fact, at the end of this article I’m going to give you a list of sites and services that I personally think can put you on a path to financial independence. And these aren’t sites you have dole out tens of thousands of dollars to be a part of. These sites are all free and are all there to help put the power back in the hands of the people – namely, you!

But it won’t be easy…no, no, no. The journey to financial freedom is certainly not the path that’s paved with gold. It’s a rough road ahead of you, but I promise that the destination is more fulfilling and rewarding than you could ever imagine.

So begin that journey today, and drop me a line from your yacht once you get there!

Websites Dedicated to Educating and Empowering Individual Investors:

1. TickerHound.com
2. Wikinvest.com
3. Covestor.com
4. Caps.Fool.com
5. SeekingAlpha.com
6. Marketocracy.com
7. TheStreet.com
8. Investopedia.com
9. BullPoo.com
10. TheTycoonReport.com

Good luck to you and God bless – you’ve undertaken an enormous responsibility and while it might be tough at first, you’ll ultimately be a better investor and a happier person for it. Congratulations!