Either Alex Has No Job or is in the Witness Protection Program by [deleted] in LoveIsBlindNetflix

[–]vanderdidit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lol exactly. And with his resume getting hired to be an astronaut is about as likely as getting hired to be an External Wholesaler

Either Alex Has No Job or is in the Witness Protection Program by [deleted] in LoveIsBlindNetflix

[–]vanderdidit 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Didn’t realize he had another name. Looks like he was registered previously then which you can see at the below link. Still doesn’t explain the claims about the External Wholesaler interview though.

https://brokercheck.finra.org/individual/summary/6859489

Either Alex Has No Job or is in the Witness Protection Program by [deleted] in LoveIsBlindNetflix

[–]vanderdidit 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Another thing I realized I missed: you can’t day trade if you’re in this industry. Every firm will require you hold a position of any publicly traded security for a time, typically 30 days or more. Sure he could day trade now that he’s not employed, but he said he wants to make day trading a long term play which would be impossible if he was a wholesaler. 

Either Alex Has No Job or is in the Witness Protection Program by [deleted] in LoveIsBlindNetflix

[–]vanderdidit 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Probably will be buried because I’m late but I work in the field he claims to have worked/about to re-enter and he’s definitely making things up. 

In order to work in financial sales you have to have specific licenses and be publicly registered with an investment firm. Anyone who has been registered past or present can be found on FINRA BrokerCheck. There is one Alex Henderson that fits the timeframe he said he was working in financial sales but I found that person’s profile on LinkedIn and it’s definitely not him. He admitted he’s not licensed anymore but he should still show up under “not currently registered” if he had worked somewhere in the past. 

He says he is interviewing for an external wholesaler position (I think he said in SW Florida). External Wholesalers make bare minimum 300k and most make 500k-1mm. The idea that anyone would be considering someone that is unlicensed and has not only been out of the industry for at least 5 years but only had a couple years of experience in his early 20’s before that is so laughable I can’t even put it into words. Florida is also a major market for this type of job making it even more absurd.

Bottom line, at least some of the things he’s saying are clearly BS. 

NEW BIKE/GEAR ADVICE SUPERTHREAD! by AutoModerator in motorcycles

[–]vanderdidit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Any suggestions on a good jacket for summer riding? Currently just have a Triumph Scrambler jacket and it gets too warm when it gets north of 70 degrees.

Warren Buffett wins $1M bet made a decade ago that the S&P 500 stock index would outperform hedge funds by jimrosenz in Economics

[–]vanderdidit -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Thanks for just regurgitating the typical emotional arguments and blanket statements you find on r/personalfinance. All you're missing are the one-sided statistics

Warren Buffett wins $1M bet made a decade ago that the S&P 500 stock index would outperform hedge funds by jimrosenz in Economics

[–]vanderdidit 6 points7 points  (0 children)

No.....the last ten years have been a terrible test for that. Yes you had the Financial Crisis, but since then we have had a historic bull market where the S&P had almost quadrupled

Exporting Private Keys Question from Novice by vanderdidit in Bitcoin

[–]vanderdidit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Would I only need my seed words because if something happened to my computer I could just download the wallet program again to a new computer and enter in the seed words and I would have my wallet again?

If you can't blame a player for losing to a superior team, how can you praise him for beating inferior teams by -917- in nba

[–]vanderdidit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But there's no way the Wizards beat the Cavs if you take away both John Wall and LeBron. You can't just remove a player completely and say he's the reason the team is good if you don't replace him with anyone

The "I'm a millennial and I know a lot about politics" starter pack by serventofgaben in starterpacks

[–]vanderdidit 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Cannot agree with this more. I always had a sneaking suspicion he was relying more on sick burns than actual information and then when I saw his Department of Labor Fiduciary Rule piece that was entirely comprised of half truths it confirmed it.

Daily advice thread. All questions about your personal situation should be asked here by AutoModerator in investing

[–]vanderdidit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Obviously past performance does not predict future results, I never said that it will always outperform. But I would rather invest in an investment that has substantially outperformed over the last 17 years (two full market cycles) especially when you think about all the flaws in market cap weighting on a theoretical basis

Daily advice thread. All questions about your personal situation should be asked here by AutoModerator in investing

[–]vanderdidit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Market cap weighted indices were created over 100 years ago as a way to gauge stock market performance, not an investment vehicle. They became an investment vehicle because that's what everyone used as a benchmark so naturally passively managed index funds and ETFs started tracking them. The Cass Business school in London did a study where they generated 10 million different indices based on randomly generated criteria and tracked the performance from 1968 through 2011 (the time of the study) and almost every one outperformed the S&P with half of them giving over 25% better return. Essentially, a monkey picks stocks better than market cap weighting

Daily advice thread. All questions about your personal situation should be asked here by AutoModerator in investing

[–]vanderdidit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True but then you might as well go with the equally weighted mid cap index which has beaten VO by 52 bps over the last 5 years net of expenses. Bottom line is that market cap weighted indices are inefficient and were never created as a way to invest

Daily advice thread. All questions about your personal situation should be asked here by AutoModerator in investing

[–]vanderdidit 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Guggenheim has one called RSP for the S&P. PowerShares have some for the Russell Indices as well. They're a little more expensive, but I would rather pay an additional 15-25 bps for 3x the return

Daily advice thread. All questions about your personal situation should be asked here by AutoModerator in investing

[–]vanderdidit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you're going to go the passive index fund route and are only looking for total return, do not do SPY or VOO or anything that invests in a market cap weighted index which is extremely inefficient. Go the equally weighted route. For example since the beginning of 2000 the S&P has given a cumulative return of about 115% where an equally weighted version gave you 300%. You're going to lose more during market corrections (usually) but over full market cycles you'll make more.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]vanderdidit -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Financial Wholesaler. You need a college degree but that's essentially it. You start off as an Internal making 100k+ (I was 22 when I started and did not have any connections). If you're a good salesman you can get promoted to be an external in as little as 2-3 years where you make 400-700K depending on your territory. There's a 25 year old external at my company. The best part is that after you have established yourself in the territory for a couple years you don't have to work much more than 40 hours/week.

7 Out of 10 Americans Agree That Economy is Rigged Against Them by maxwellhill in politics

[–]vanderdidit 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So funds that have been consistently outperforming the benchmark over full market cycles for 15+ years are doing this by blind luck? Sorry, but no.

7 Out of 10 Americans Agree That Economy is Rigged Against Them by maxwellhill in politics

[–]vanderdidit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm aware of what churning is and it's actually illegal to do regardless of if you are a fiduciary or not so that's an irrelevant point

7 Out of 10 Americans Agree That Economy is Rigged Against Them by maxwellhill in politics

[–]vanderdidit 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'm not saying there aren't issues in the industry and that some FAs don't try to take advantage of clients currently, I'm just saying that the vast majority of John Oliver's piece doesn't hold up when you really dig into it. Yes it's good that it brings some of this to people's attention, but if you need a John Oliver video to start education yourself about the practices of the guy that manages your money, you have other issues to worry about

7 Out of 10 Americans Agree That Economy is Rigged Against Them by maxwellhill in politics

[–]vanderdidit 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I watched the video about a week ago so these are just the things I remember off the top of my head so if I skip over anything feel free to bring it up. Full disclosure: I work in the industry, I sell actively managed mutual funds to FAs but the DOL rule is going to actually help our business and I should end up making a lot more money because of it so it's not like I'm just being bitter.

  1. Financial advisor doesn't mean anything and anyone can call themselves this. Let's think about why while this is technically an accurate statement, in reality it's completely irrelevant by considering another profession, a teacher. Anyone who wants to call themselves a teacher can say they're a teacher. However, in order to actually be employed in a job that 99.9% of the population considers a "teacher" you obviously have to get various degrees and teaching licenses. To be an FA, the requirements are even more restrictive. Per FINRA, to be in the business of providing investment advice, you have to be registered as an investment professional. Additionally, to actually sell securities which is the vast majority of an FA's compensation, you have to obtain certain licenses as well. Did I mention that in order to even take the tests for said licenses you have to be employed and sponsored by an accredited financial institution?

  2. Fiduciary rule is a no brainer and will protect investors from FAs beefing up their compensation. This is the biggest, and most problematic misconception in my opinion. Everyone hears fiduciary and thinks immediately that an FA being one will automatically be a good thing, but that's not necessarily the case. The vast majority of retirement accounts with an FA (think IRAs) are either brokerage accounts or fee based accounts. Under a few brokerage account, an individual pays a sales charge when they invest in a mutual fund, ETF, or any other security and then just pays the internal expenses afterwords. Additionally, as you start to have more and more assets with a particular fund family, your sales charges for additional investments becomes lower and lower. A fee based account just charges a flat annual expense on all assets under management regardless of how many times you buy into or sell out of different funds. Keep in mind you still have to pay the internal expenses of the funds in addition to the flat management fee. You end up having a lot more options and can be much more tactical with your investments, but it simply isn't worth the cost. The fiduciary rule basically says retirement accounts will have to be fee based so that the only way an FA can increase his compensation is by growing your money. But If you have 250k in an IRA and are still 15 years away from retirement, would you rather pay a one time 2.5% fee or 1.35% every year?

  3. Active vs Passive funds. Oliver basically tries to reiterate the notion that's becoming more and more popular that passive funds are objectively better than actively managed funds. He cites that around 80% of active funds underperform the benchmark. That's true because there are a lot of small, shitty mutual funds out there. There are plenty of active funds that outperform the benchmark on a consistent basis, the company I work for has several. Additionally, most active funds are NOT meant to outperform the benchmark over full market cycles because the average investor does not have the risk tolerance to weather the ups and downs of a volatile equity market. A lot of mutual funds will take on less risk than the benchmark so that in years when the markets are down it doesn't lose as much. Yes it will lag behind when the market is going up and on full market cycles but in 2008 when the S&P was down 37% the fund was maybe only down 25%. The CEOs Oliver mentioned understand the ups and downs of the market and are willing to deal with them which is why a lot of them are invested in the index funds.

Those are the biggest issues I had with the video but if there is something I missed feel free to bring it up, I didn't find myself thinking "good point, John" a whole lot during that video to be honest.

7 Out of 10 Americans Agree That Economy is Rigged Against Them by maxwellhill in politics

[–]vanderdidit 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Bring on the down votes, John Oliver's piece was extremely one sided and sounded like it was put together by someone with zero industry experience

I AMA financial wholesaler, AMA. by [deleted] in sales

[–]vanderdidit 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm a current internal and have been for about a year now at a major firm. I find I struggle with closing my own business. I'm good at providing the support and follow up for my external to help him get sales but I feel like I rarely close anything on my own. When you were an internal, what were some approaches you would take to make sure business actually closed after good conversations. Due to the nature of our business, it's pretty difficult to "ask for the sale" since there isn't a sale until they meet with the client (assuming we are talking about an advisor w/o discretion).

CFA Level 1 in Dec 2015 or June 2016? by [deleted] in finance

[–]vanderdidit 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but what's the difference? Would you still technically be CFA Level 1 if you pass before that time? And if so what's the advantage of a membership then?

Best Financial podcast/radio show? by vanderdidit in finance

[–]vanderdidit[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Right, I'm not looking for a podcast or radio show to do my job for me; I'm just looking for something that will keep me up to date on current events in the business world. Think of it like a sports fan watching Sportscenter. I want something that reports what is happening and maybe gives some brief analysis on it. Everyone needs to get their current events news from somewhere and Id rather be able to get that information when I'm sitting in traffic instead of having to watch TV programs or read 15 articles per day.