I've written several "best advice" pieces (see my best advice category for details) and love to hear short takes on what financial "experts" view to be their best piece of financial advice. Over the couple several days, I'll share some of these from a Bankrate article on best personal finance advice and give you my comments on them. Today, we'll hear from Peter Navarro, associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of California, Irvine:
"Take every piece of advice you get from any investment adviser with a barrel of salt. Most are trying to sell you things that you probably don't need or want. Think for yourself."
Navarro says he learned that lesson after a bad experience with a financial adviser. "I lost some money, then took control and never looked back," he says.
Oh, yeah. This guy's speaking my language.
For my thoughts on the same issue, see these past posts:
Certainly there are times when you need a financial professional. For instance, I use a CPA for taxes, a lawyer for estate planning and an insurance agent for disability insurance. But much of personal finance is easy to learn and implement and, I believe, better off left to you.
What about you? What do you think of Navarro's advice?
I think that if I have time (or the functioning left-hemesphere) to learn the ins and outs of different types of investing strategies, then good for me, otherwise a financial adviser (chosen based on personal recommendations) is better than no strategy at all.
Not everyone who got enough patience to dilligently send whatever % of the payched to a savings account each month can tully make sense of the pile of book on stocks, bonds, funds, etc.
I personally never used a planner, but had I felt like my finances actually need some planning beyond what I can provide, I would not hesitate to start looking for recommendations.
I am not a business major (although I considered it). I have completely different interests and obsessions to take care of. I believe that I have better things to do with my days than shifting through 300000 books and Intenet articles on stocks just to decide what my ration of which bonds to which stocks (not that I actively invest in stocks) might possibly be.
That would be my take.
Posted by: Elena | November 06, 2007 at 10:13 AM
Peter Navarro was one of my professors at UCI when I was going through the Fully Employed MBA program ('04). His macro-econ class was one of the best I had during those three years.
Posted by: John | November 08, 2007 at 02:57 PM