We Need Your Advice to Solve a Mystery

The more we realize that we are not perfect and have much to learn from our clients, we ask ourselves what it would be like if we knew exactly what our clients need.

With this in mind, we will be asking (more directly and more frequently) for YOUR advice going forward.

Investors in the investor class of the world’s largest equity fund made 3.2% per year (end of June). And yet investment experts tell us that markets are "efficient." If they were "efficient" (and people acted "rationally") then investors’ returns would match the returns of the investments they own (at least most of the time). But they don’t. The world’s largest equity fund made 5.4% over the same period.

The question is, WHY do investors’ returns lag so much?

I need your advice on how we can solve this mystery. Why do investors do so poorly? This advice will be compiled into a book I am writing.

Before we start, let’s review some key facts:

1. Investment "experts" teach us that markets are efficient
2. This leads experts to invest in indexes, and for investment managers to invest like indexes
3. This has not worked well for investors (who run from risk and chase returns)
4. And it has created opportunities for unscrupulous insurance salesman to transfer investors’ potential returns to them (cheating them so much a new rule will make it illegal in retirement accounts)

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