Brian Portnoy, founder of Shaping Wealth, joined TheStreet to discuss why simplicity wins in the stock market.
Transcript:
CONWAY GITTENS: What is the best piece of investment advice you’ve ever heard?
BRIAN PORTNOY: The best advice I’ve ever gotten and what I’ve tried to follow through in terms of my own writing and the business that, that I run is to always keep an eye on your values and what’s important to you, because when you just compare one number versus another and you say, hey, 2 million is better than 1 million, and 1 million is better than half a million. Well, in some sense that might be true, but it doesn’t really attach to the ‘why’ of what we’re doing. And so you can have billionaires who are miserable and you can have people with a lot less money who are living wonderful, flourishing lives. And a lot of that difference is based on the fact that one person has a sense of what’s really important to them. And the other one doesn’t. So the best advice that I’ve received, the best advice that I could give is to really think first, not about the markets, not about your bank account, but what’s important to you in your life. And then secondly, ask the question, well, how can I underwrite or afford the things that are most meaningful to me?
CONWAY GITTENS: Are there any money myths that you see often or you hear often that you’d like to be put to rest?
BRIAN PORTNOY: Absolutely, number one on my list is that there is no complexity premium. Let me clarify. There is no extra good stuff that you get by investing in more complicated, more illiquid private investments and things like that. It’s very easy, again, to the point of so, you know, social comparison to say, look at all those hedge funds or private equity or other sorts of vehicles that, you know, friends or neighbors or colleagues might be invested in. I want to get into that. I would say that when you actually look at the actual returns on some of those more complicated investments, all you’re getting is a lot of headache and not a lot of return. So keeping it simple, absolutely important. You know, in the investment world, you really don’t make a lot more money by indulging in a ton of complexity. Keep it simple.
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