In this week's WealthTalk podcast, WealthBuilders Founder Kevin and Wealth Coach Manish Kataria delve into investing strategies and the challenges of high fees in traditional investment approaches. They discuss the importance of diversification for minimising risk, explore various investment options including ETFs and core-satellite strategies, and share insights on using tools for creating portfolios that provide recurring income. The episode promises invaluable advice for investors looking to manage their money more effectively and avoid unnecessary costs. Tune in to gain expert knowledge on enhancing your investment approach.
This week on the WealthTalk podcast, WealthBuilders Founder, Kevin and Wealth Coach, Manish Kataria, provide key insights into the world of investing.
In this eye-opening episode, they address the pressing issue of hefty fees often encountered with traditional investing methods and highlight the critical role of diversification in reducing risk.
From the intricacies of Independent Financial Advisers (IFAs) to the advantages of Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) and the dynamics of core-satellite investing strategies, Kevin and Manish provide a wealth of comprehensive insights you'll want to hear.
Lastly, they explore effective tools for constructing portfolios that generate recurring income, offering practical strategies for the savvy investors of today.
Don't miss out - Tune in and discover whether you can manage your money better than somebody else who may be taking considerable fees without adding considerable value.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
>> Investment Academy [Website]
>> Investment Insights: WealthBuilders London Networking
Next Steps On Your Wealth Building Journey:
>> Join the WealthBuilders Facebook Community
>> Become a member of WealthBuilders
If you have been enjoying listening to WealthTalk - Please Leave Us A Review!
Speaker 1 0:01
The purpose of wealth talk is to educate, inform, and hopefully entertain you on the subject of building your wealth. Wealth builders recommends you should always take independent financial tax or legal advice before making any decisions around your finances.
Christian Rodwell 0:17
Today's episode is brought to you by wealth builders membership a proven step by step process that helps you achieve financial security within two to three years. Find out more head to wealth builders.co.uk forward slash membership. Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of wealth talk. My name is Christian Rodwell, the membership director for wealth builders. And we are just one week away from our London networking event which is titled investment insights and we'll be featuring the following guest speakers. Firstly Mr. Jeff Hancock, co founder and CEO of coin past.com who were voted Best crypto exchange 2020. And we have Tracee Hilliard, whose wealth builders member and investor sharing her insights along with today's guests, wealth builders coach and founder of invest like a pro. Mr. MANISH Kataria. So if you'd like to join Kevin, myself and the rest of the wealth builders team plus over 70 of our wealth builder members, Then be quick because tickets are selling really fast. The event takes place on Tuesday, April the 30th at picker Leno's in London. And the event starts at 6pm. So you can find all the details and book your ticket by heading to wealth builders.co.uk forward slash events. So today we will be hearing an excerpt from a conversation between wealth builders founder Kevin and Manish Kataria, which was recorded recently to provide insights into the world of investing for our members. And the topic of today's discussion is whether you can manage your money better than somebody else who may be taking considerable fees without adding considerable value. Okay, let's hear what they have to say.
Speaker 2 1:57
Hello, everyone. This is Kevin Whelan, here on wealth builders. And I'm joined today by the amazingly knowledgeable Manish Kataria. And we're going to be sharing today a bit of a q&a session really on some of the investment challenges and principles that we often get asked when it comes to the subject of the investment and the pension pillar. So we're not going to be diving into property necessarily, we're not diving into other areas of investing, we're going to be focusing on the investments themselves. And really just to have a chat about where they fit in. And Manish most people, when they come to wealth builders or they come to invest like a pro, they tend to have got their money on automatic pilot, they've either got it set up because their dad told them or they've got it set up because their workplace told them in a pension scheme, or they've saved some money in in stocks and shares or an ISIS and whatever. But it tends to be almost an automatic pilot. And I just want to talk to you a little bit more about how people can learn about what they can do learn about things they could get involved and be more empowered, and learn about ways that they could increase their returns, reduce their risk, and even pass on some wisdom to the next generation. Sound like a good subject. Sounds like the perfect subject. All right. Well, let's dive into that. So the first thing we're going to talk about is most people get access to the marketplace, let's call it the stock market for the sake of an argument via some form of guided process, and that's normally through ifas or through professionals like that. Now, we're definitely not browbeating ifas, we know ifas, well meaning highly qualified people do a great job. But the job they don't do as well, I think is when it comes to the investing. So what's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3 3:54
Well, you're right, Kevin, you know that most people they let start from their childhood, most people go through the schooling system being taught how to get into the corporate world, how to train themselves, to get into a good job. And then once they're in a good job, they're taught how to go out spending that money. They're bombarded with marketing messages about, you know, how do you go about spending all the money you've just earned. But no one really teaches you about investing, right? I mean, no one has ever taught me a formal way of investing. So that's really a big gap. And you're right, you know, once you enter the workplace, most people have their pension schemes all mapped out for them. It's on autopilot. As you said, there isn't much of a choice to be made. And people don't realise actually how expensive those schemes are. And quite possibly, how inappropriate those schemes might be. You know, they may not be suited to your or your own personal risk profile. They may be achieving subpar returns. And people don't realise because it's their workplace pension scheme, right. So why would you question it you think it's so much It's like a charitable benevolent setup. But it's not because actually, when you dig into the numbers, you're being overcharged, the returns aren't as good as they can be. And actually, you're not learning anything, right? So so you're you're kind of leaving it to its own devices, but you're not actually in control at any point. Well, I
Speaker 2 5:19
suppose when it comes to wealth, generally, one of the core concepts is to understand what you're doing in order to work out where you can add value, to work out what you expect the returns to be in the context of, eventually, if it's a longer term, when people are working, planning some form of retirement, or if it's in the shorter term, not putting aside money for emergencies and other things, but just investing for the medium term. They're not really not planning what the expectation is, they get what they get, rather than plan based on the expectation. So I think we've done a good job of the context. And historically, I think I agree that the benevolent factor, which was mostly applied in the final salary, pensions, when companies just provided the benefit, and the risk was taken away from the individual now, absolutely, we've got to look risk fairly and squarely in the eye and say, Well, how do we manage risk in a world where we don't actually know what's going on? So why don't we take a look at and have a discussion about what the process is that a typical IFA would go through. So as we said earlier on money, most people get exposure. And then money gets allocated in conjunction with some form or advisory process, whether it's facilitated by the employer, whether they pay for that. But I'd like to talk about the kind of principles of where all I've A's are taught, because they are taught this. And they are taught really to follow a process that is more compliance than it is about getting a result. Because more often than not the regulation of ifas. And I have to speak from a point of view of the guy who wears the hat. I am a qualified IFA, and I do give advice. Occasionally, I'm not on this particular video, budgeting, talk about principles. And the principles that most ifas follow works through what we would call modern portfolio theory, which is my it's not really that modern Harry Markowitz in the 1950s. Right? So it's not modern, but nonetheless, that seems to be where most debates come out there. So they start off with asking a series of questions about your attitude to risk. And you fill out a form and you'll get an output. And the output will either be numerical, or will be some sort of attitude. So on a scale of one to 10, with one being low and 10 being high. MANISH you've come out as a seven, or Kevin, you've come out as an eight, or you're cautious, moderate, moderately cautious, adventurous, moderately adventurous, a whole range of different descriptions. But it's all done almost to homogenise the process? And what's your view about that as a way to start with building wealth?
Speaker 3 8:10
Well, look, I think you're right, you know, it's it's historically has been done like that. And, you know, it's almost a simplistic way of looking at things. It's almost pigeonholing people into categories, which just makes life easy for the IFA. And look, historically, it probably had the right foundations, because historically, there were only really two main asset classes, which people could have considered equities and bonds. But actually, now, there are a whole range of different asset classes for retail investors, you know, people could be looking at so we're talking properties, secured loans, options, other forms of equities, which are never really considered. So I personally think it's a slightly lazy way of investing there is what's called the so called rule of 100, which some ifas apply, which is, you know, you take your age, and 100 minus your age is the amount, you should be investing in bonds, for example. So really, that's a very convenient and almost lazy way of putting it. But actually, the more important aspect is what you mentioned, the primary driver for advisors, a lot of the time is compliance, not necessarily maximising your long term net wealth, not necessarily minimising your costs. It's about, you know, coming at it from a position of compliance, which isn't the best way to start this process, in my view. And
Speaker 2 9:43
if you think about the vast majority of people who are building a long term wealth or in the stock market through this methodology, what's interesting to me is that the vast majority then of the wealth is passed to the institutions because they get paid before the investor, they get paid whether the investor makes money or not. And the simplicity of the process, often opaque in its nature, meaning that the individual can't look through it and see all what's actually happening here. When if you think it's the simplicity of a model, and we'll talk about how models are created, what do they do with that, you know, you mentioned the rule of 100, and different ways of doing that. But in the end, it's all constructed in a very simplistic way, like a little building block of this much in equities, this much in bonds, this much in cash. And there may be some property thrown in through some form of property holding. But generally speaking, that's it. So the conversation about holding real property, holding alternative assets, building a business, all of the things we share in wealth builders are never ever taught in there because they're not regulated. So the real challenge I've got with the IFA process is the simplicity are you I like the way you use it's lazy, when that laziness really means that they get paid, and usually get paid substantially more than is warranted for the amount of work that's been done. Because the I suppose the Individual Thinks the advisor is moving money is responding to the market. But are they?
Speaker 3 11:16
No, well, look, they follow a model set at the start of the year. And really, there isn't much to do in between those resets. And those rebalancing. And even the rebalancing 's are fairly sort of straightforward. So there isn't a huge amount of work to be done. It's a very scalable business model for the iPhone. Yes. You know, it's a question of, it's done on a percentage of assets basis. So whatever you've invested, the IFA takes a percentage. And as you mentioned, you know, whether the markets are up or down, the IFA gets paid anyway. So it's a great business model for the ifas. For the investors, they perhaps don't realise the extent to which their wealth is being leaked out in fees, and it's huge, it's devastating. And if you sit down to do the numbers, and there are lots of online calculators around, most people are surprised and shocked by the amount of your wealth that is leaked out in fees. And it's so easy to do something about this, it's so easy to a recognise the amount of fees you're paying, and B to actually take steps to try and minimise those fees.
Speaker 2 12:22
But we'll get on to fees, because there are some real positive things that an individual can do. And the starting point, of course of all of that, is the awareness of what they are. Most people tragically do not know that, or even if they did, so typically, we know, in the whole financial institutions, it's typically around 2% Doesn't sound a lot, because many Sony a couple of percent, yeah, just a couple of percent. But if the returns 8% has 25% of your money leaking away, if it's 6%, because you've reduced your risk over time as you get older, it might be 30%. And all of a sudden, you found a joint venture relationship with somebody who's putting none of their own money in taking none of the risk and taking a third to 25% of your money, with very few questions asked, and I'm not sure that's the ideal way.
Speaker 3 13:11
And don't forget those fees compound on themselves as well over the years, which is what creates that huge deficit at the end of your period.
Speaker 2 13:20
So we talked about the IFA process. And we mentioned very clearly that there's room for good guidance and advice, but it's probably least value driven on the allocations and the modelling. Let's talk about what the expectations then would be. So an RFA designs, does the risk questionnaire says based on this risk questionnaire, I'm going to allocate the money as a recommendation, which therefore is compliance approved and can't be criticised for it, you can't be sued for it will be this amount of money in equities, this amount of money in bonds, this in cash this in property, for example, might be simpler than that. But that's the model. And driven by the risk score of one to 10, let's say there's an expectation that they have already built into the model, which would be an average return, but also the degree to which there's volatility in terms of what that could be. Now, my experience is having done this work behind the scenes, and there's a simple principle I share, which I call and it's not a rule, but I call it the rule of five and three. So what does that mean? It means if you ask someone what their risk score is on a scale of one to 10, let's say they say they're seven, right? We mentioned that with you, Manisha are seven, right? Okay. Well, what does that mean? Well, what seven times 535? Okay, lock that number in my head. What's three times 721? Well, that's the bottom expectation. That's a minus, because we know sometimes stock markets go down. So when you put that into the modelling, it says 95 year 100 Because there are always outliers and black swan events, we expect your money will be somewhere on a risk level seven between plus 35 and minus 21, with an expectation of a long term return of 7% Gross, of which the charges have to come off of that. And when you think about the simplicity of that, when you realise that you're going well hang on a minute, they're designing something they're taking the lion's share. And all they're telling me is, my money is going to hover between plus 35 and minus 21. And different numbers will apply a different risk scores. But that's the principle. I'm not sure that people will be happy with that as a known expectation if they could do even themselves, but not pay 2% in fees. So what are your views about that expectation, whether people actually know about that?
Speaker 3 15:52
Well, the key thing really is, you know, the fees are a high percentage. And if the value that they're adding in the process you've just described is to tell you this is likely to happen, then for me, the amount being charged for that bit of value to be added, isn't a fair exchange of value. I agree. And you touched upon it. In my experience, when I've seen investors, when I've worked with investors who have, you know, perhaps come from their work pension schemes or IFA managed portfolios, we offer a sort of free evaluation of what their historical returns have been right and nine times out of 10, what I find is that actually, they've come along, and they can save fees very, very easily, which is pretty straightforward. But actually nine times out of 10, they could be achieving better results, or more specifically, they would have achieved better returns if they had invested in, in very, very straightforward passive set and forget ETFs, and funds, which actually don't need advisors to be doing your work for you. Because these are very, very available. They're really easy to implement. And actually the innovation in the last 20 odd years with ETFs, and index funds have just revolutionised the financial and the investment industry, which makes it so much easier and cheaper for people to come along and take control of their own investment process.
Speaker 2 17:23
It's interesting, isn't it, that the technology always improves and brings value? But generally not in financial services? I think it's it's almost like, well, we can see there's a value, but we don't want to share that value, and maintain the status quo. And I think this opaque structure, and the fact that you talked about there, you know, let's just deep bunk the language. Historically, more people in the NOC, I don't know, the numbers, specifically you might know, are inactive funds. And there's no evidence at all that active funds outperform passive funds. I don't think there's any evidence, in fact, quite the opposite. Yeah, exactly. And I think I saw one article which said, only one in 100 beats, and you never know which one it's going to be. So why would you even take the risk when if you analyse or even just temporarily just put your mind in what is a stock market, it's getting a share of the profit in companies, and you can see transparently what the companies are. So as long as you're comfortable with even deciding that you think you'd like the modelling of the 100 rule, or the asset allocation based on a risk, or you could get somebody to do that for a few 100 pounds, and then manage the money yourself afterwards. And when people hear the word manage money, they got ooh, I don't think I could do that. But they don't need to actively manage because the money is being managed anyway, by virtue of using passive funds, where the market does the work, which is what the companies are doing, you know, knocking on the door of a company saying, Would you mind changing your strategy, you just letting it do the work and companies make profit, and ETFs or exchange traded funds? Some people might not know the language is revolutionised, the cost base of being able to access different ways of investing. And I No, not this in this session, but you do a great job of explaining how ETFs work and why there's an incredible value and benefit. We appreciate you doing that. But the key message I think to get in this section here is you don't need to delegate because delegation quickly turns into abdication. And abdication is like you've just forgotten about him. And then you've got no knowledge, no wisdom and you feel helpless. And the whole skill of wealth building is to feel informed, confident and willing to get involved and you don't need an incredible amount of knowledge to make these decisions. Is that right? Absolutely.
Speaker 3 19:53
I couldn't agree more. I mean, the investment industry is incredibly good. But at giving us the impression that it's complex, it's not easy for you to do yourself, right, and the whole marketing, angling for you to part with your money and get somebody else get the experts to do your investing for you. Yeah, it's brilliant. And the marketing has always worked. And it's no wonder if you ask the average person, they'll think that they'll say to you, well, investing is too complex I'd rather somebody else do for me, that may have been the case of, you know, a couple of decades ago, but like you said, you know, ETFs really have revolutionised the industry. And we've got players like Vanguard and iShares, who make it so much easier. I think the key thing is people just need the right setup, which I know we'll go on to, but really being diversified properly, controlling your costs, and being in the right areas, controlling your leakages, fees, inflation and taxes. If you've got the right setup, you know, anyone can do this, you know, and you don't need to pay those high fees. So totally agree.
Christian Rodwell 21:05
Sorry, I wonder if you agreed with the opinions of Kevin and Manish there. Well, if you'd like to come and meet us and talk further about investments, and in fact, any of the Seven Pillars of Wealth, then we would absolutely love to see you at our forthcoming event on Tuesday, the 30th of April, which takes place in London at pikolinos. And tickets are available at our website, which is wealth builders.co.uk forward slash events. Okay, that's it for this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. And we'll be back Same time, same place next week. So yeah.
Speaker 1 21:40
We hope you enjoy today's episode. Don't forget that we are constantly updating our resources inside a wealth builders membership site to help you create, build and protect your wealth. Head over to wealth builders.co.uk/membership right now for free access. That's wealth builders.co.uk/membership