Mad as Hell and Filled with Night Terror—Investing by Last Book Read
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008I’m sending a lump of coal to my financial adviser. Are you sending one to yours?
I’d like to know how stocks purchased over a year ago, like Citibank (C) or Radian Group Inc (RDN) or Irwin Financial Corp (IFC), could have been allowed to plunge to under $10 a share (now $7.22, $2.38 and $1.59, respectively) and still be in my portfolio when I had a smart, seasoned financial adviser watching — someone to whom I paid a percentage of my account not only to be there for the good times, but to protect and insulate me from the bad times. Have you asked yourself and your stockbroker that question, too?
NO, I said. I do not wish to continue to reinvest. I want out.
But this was months ago, and by the time I unceremoniously yanked my account and relocated it to Ameritrade, it was really too late. Yet, even as the bottom continued to fall out of the market, “hang on, this too shall pass” emails kept arriving from my now former financial adviser. Three months later, I’m am waking up in the middle of the night screaming in terror. 
For several years I’d been gingerly investing in the stock market. I didn’t really understand it, but I had some money in one of the Oakmark mutual funds and was doing pretty well. Then I read The Brainwashing of the American Investor—The Book that Wall Street Does Not Want You to Read! by Steven R. Selengut. This is a print-on-demand, self-published book a mutual friend of mine and the author asked me to take a look at about five years ago. There was information contained in the book that was forthright and made sense to me. Of course, the goal of any book of this genre is to tell people how to invest, then hope those people with real money will realize they don’t have the time to handle their own accounts, and will end up investing with the author.
