Investing your own money successfully isn’t as hard as most people think. Still, it takes some time and effort. Most people would rather pay a competent financial advisor for advice instead, and they will probably tell you about the importance of diversification, why your age has something to do with your tolerance for risk, the usefulness of dollar-cost-averaging to offset market timing, and how you shouldn’t try to cherry-pick the next Microsoft. An appropriate mix of equity and fixed income index tracking funds with a slowly changing allocation between the two has been a go-to investment strategy for many the successful investment advisor over the years.
On the other side of the spectrum you will find advisors who offer up some incredibly easy ways to lose all your money. We’ve talked about some of these before, mainly over-the-counter (OTC) stocks and all that ICO 1.0 garbage. However, there are also more subtle ways to lose your money, like putting all your eggs in one basket while listening to some expert espouse the merits of a particular stock.
Back in November of 2015 we wrote about an