Your Advisor's Handbook: Top advisors share their secrets to success

Advisors are fortune tellers Your advisor is a salesperson first and foremost. They would not have a job otherwise. Contrary to the Wall Street hype, your advisor has no special information. They are not a therapist/doctor curing your financial problem or sickness. Few sales people use the products they sell because of costs. The most successful Wall Street executives are NOT traders. They do NOT try to time the market. They have learned the lessons of the legends of the business: "The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient." Warren Buffett In fact, the the average managed-account equity investor earned just 3.79% a year over 30 years A simple index earned 11%. Buffett, perhaps the greatest investor of all time, with 60 years experience, boils down the stock market to patience. Mr Buffett's strategy of patience is the most successful. He earns about 20% a year compounded over time. He does NOT buy and sell stocks frequently. In other words, he does the opposite of what Wall Street 'advises' us to do. Wall Street is a sales industry not an advice industry. Do we ask a barber if we need a haircut?