May 12, 2003

I Just Met with My Investment Advisor
by Marcel Chartier

I recently came back from a meeting with my financial advisor, which, for the past few times has been a non-event. Not that meeting with a financial advisor should be some big event or something, its just that the meeting generally has gone like, "your investments are still sliding down a bit", and I nod and mutter, “yeah”. We conclude that doing anything like moving money out at this time is a bad thing. My advisor assures me, and I know, the funds I hold contain good solid companies who will stand out over time. I know this is a good opportunity to dollar cost average downwards, but somehow it just feels less than satisfying.

Now, don't get me wrong here, the advisor has nothing to do with the less than satisfying feeling - it’s the markets. Its hard to continue to do something that at first glance does not seem to be paying off. I mean, you touch a hot pan and you don't want to touch it again. You invest money and see it go down and you don't want to put more money into it. It’s the way we are. Except, while investing you evaluate what you are investing in, and if it still makes good sense to invest - you invest more. Being a good investor is a bit counter-intuitive. You have to counter your innate urges, you have to train yourself to become a "good" investor. For most people it does not come naturally.

That is why I am such an advocate of starting slow and learning from how you feel as you go along. If you think of the period of time you are learning to invest as training, you will start slow and build competence first. Later on in the process you can add more difficulty, and thereby gain greater confidence. Through this development process you get to know yourself, your limits and you learn to read your strengths and weaknesses. Why would investing be any different that learning or developing skills for anything else?