Fundamentals Of Financial Planning That Wall Street Forgot

摘要

Wall Street succeeds when one investor sells and another buys. Reward is derived from the sale without reference to the investor's personal circumstance, needs or goals. "The Market" determines the fair value of each sale. It's an amoral transaction that assumes the purchaser has done their due diligence - evaluating both risk and potential return. Caveat emptor. Conscientious investors will at least pay lip service to Wall Street metrics, actually combing through the latest prospectus before making their purchase (even though the document may be weeks, or sometimes months out of date), attempting to fathom what sometimes seems unfathomable. Better than tossing darts. Alas, Wall Street is much better at helping you with the investment purchase than helping you determine if you should sell it. Where's the prospectus for that? So, in a desperate effort to anticipate rallies or declines, investors will rely on trends, tips, promises, celebrity pundits or the alignment of planets. There's only one clear consequence to all this - an investment decision that lags the market stands a better chance of losing than making a profit. Although Wall Street benefits every time we react to FEAR, it can't control the extent to which fear spreads and undermines investor confidence.