I love investing. If you’re one of my regular readers, you already know that. But have you stopped to think about what that statement means? I love investing. It means I’m emotional about investing.
In the worldwide community of investment professionals there’s a lot of talk about discipline. Humans are emotional creatures. We like to think our decisions are logical. Almost certainly that’s because we use logic in the decision-making process. But often the use of logic is less in making the decision and more in justifying the decision that you made based on emotion. And so, in these cases logic ends up masking the emotional basis for our decision.
But let’s get back to Hal’s emotions. I love investing. And that means that there are some investments that I really love. And one thing I have learned in life and in my investing career is that I am not unique. What I’ve learned from that is that if I am thinking something, there are probably lots of others thinking the same thing.
What I mean by this is that there are lots of people who, like me, sometimes fall in love with an investment. And this is where discipline becomes very important. This is true whether you are a professional or a non-professional and understanding it could one day save you from a catastrophic loss.
Recently I was watching the Netflix documentary “Dirty Pop: The Boy Band Scam”. It’s the fascinating story of how Lou Pearlman sold fraudulent investments to bankroll his promotion business in which he founded and created the success of The Backstreet Boys and several other similar bands. In the end, Pearlman was convicted of running a Ponzi scheme. He sold fraudulent certificates that he claimed, and showed on his fraudulent documents, were FDIC insured and paid 9% interest at a time when interest rates were much below that.
Once again, I found myself watching heartbreaking interviews of innocent people that lost everything – all their savings. How did that happen? It happened because they violated two principles. 1) If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And 2) more relevant to this article, never put all your eggs in one basket.
To be a catastrophic victim of Lou Pearlman, Bernie Madoff, or any other scam, you have to violate both of these but it’s the second one that can really save you. Never put all your eggs in one basket.
Makes sense right? If you drop the basket, all your eggs will be broken. Never put all your eggs in one basket is discipline wrapped in homespun wisdom and common sense.
Scams happen. Some fraudsters are very good at what they do. One thing I learned a long time ago is that you really aren’t able to beat professionals at their game. It happens sometimes, but it’s rare. Most of the time a professional is going to beat you and do so easily. Some fraudsters are professionals. A clever fraud can take years to expose and during that time they will take a lot of people’s money. This can happen to anyone. There’s a temptation to assume that people who are victims of fraud are stupid and that it would never happen to you. That’s the kind of false confidence that can get you into trouble.
If you encounter a professional fraudster, the chances are very good they will take some money from you. Remember, they are professionals. They are very good at it, much better than you and in many, maybe even most cases, you won’t even realize it was a fraud until after your money is gone.
And they are very good at getting you to put more and more of your money into their scheme until you have lost most or all of your money. This is where discipline can really save you.
One of the time honored tricks of scams and frauds is to appeal to your greed. Most investment schemes rely on the victim’s greed. A Con man is one who not only relies on the victim’s greed, but they also rely on trust. We like to do business with people we trust. Con is short for confidence. If you trust someone you have confidence in them. So maybe you trust someone who just offered you a terrific investment opportunity. Let’s suppose that you believe everything you have been told and are ready to invest. What should you do?
If you read this article, I hope you will hear a little voice in your head that says, “Never put all your eggs in one basket.”
If you put a little money into something, say less than 10% of your investable assets, hopefully a lot less than 10%, and it’s a fraud, you still have more than 90% of your money. The fraud didn’t leave you broke.
So, what’s the lesson? No matter how much you love an investment, never put…. Hopefully by now you are able to repeat that without my help!
Hal Masover is a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor and a registered representative. His firm, Investment Insights, LLC is located at 508 N 2nd Street, Suite 203, Fairfield, IA 52556. Securities offered through, Cambridge Investment Research, Inc, a Broker/Dealer, Member FINRA/SIPC. Investment Advisor Representative, Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a Registered Investment Advisor. Investment Insights, Inc & Cambridge are not affiliated. Comments and questions can be sent to hal@getyourinsight.com These are the opinions of Hal Masover and not necessarily those of Cambridge, are for informational purposes only, and should not be construed or acted upon as individualized investment advice. Investing involves risk. Depending on the types of investments, there may be varying degrees of risk. Investors should be prepared to bear loss, including total loss of principal. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.