I was still at university when I got into the financial planning industry in Australia. My education in investments and markets had started back in 1993 when I was a 10-year-old.
That was thanks to my pop (grandfather). He used to have these little cards stored in a metal lockbox. These cards had all the details of shareholding he’d built up for us, himself, my nan, my mum, and my uncle.
This was in the days before fancy fast trading with online brokers. Heck, back then the internet was still seen as a strange weird world for nerds. How things change…
But this all led me to finance and economics at Uni and then into a part time job with a financial adviser in Mount Waverley in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
And there I stuck for a few years developing and getting a handle on how to deal with clients, providing financial advice, and learning how the industry works. That financial planning group was tied to AMP. And we were always fighting with one hand tied behind our back.
We could only recommend funds that were AMP approved. We could recommend insurances and strategies that weren’t AMP-focused, but there was always a pressure and preference towards AMP options.
It never really sat right. Nor should it.
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Disagreement breeds excellence
I ended up with an independent financial advice company that had their own Financial Services Licence. We were truly independent and able to recommend whatever we wanted to clients. Sort of…
Even with an independent advisory firm there’s still complexity in what your approved recommendations lists look like, what companies you deal with, and how clients pay for the advice needed and given.
In short, the world of financial planning in Australia is important. And people need good, independent advice. But the industry itself, is flawed, it’s full of bias, conflict, issues with what advice should and does really cost versus what people have been conditioned to think it’s worth.
I got out when I realised I needed to find something else that gave me the intellectual freedom I craved. And yet, still something I was good at. And that’s how I ended up at Port Phillip Publishing. It’s why I’m writing to you now and do what I do.
I’m not alone in being a ‘reformed’ financial planner. My colleague Vern Gowdie is a reformed financial planner too. And funnily enough we both found our way to writing to independent-thinking readers like you with Port Phillip Publishing.
Here we have the freedom to really open your eyes to what’s going on in the world and how you can take action about it. Albeit, we come to our conclusions and advice from two very different perspectives.
Now, Vern and I don’t always see eye to eye on the direction the world and markets are heading.
But that’s OK. In fact, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Differing views are exactly what you need when you’re making critical decisions about your wealth, how to grow it, how to protect it, and what moves you’re going to make.
If you only ever listen to someone like me, you’ll end up in your own echo chamber. You need varied, reasoned, thought-out ideas and views from all angles.
This is what helps to promote independent thought and for you to take your own situation by the scruff of the neck.
It’s exactly what we’re all about — independent thought and taking control of your own destiny.
That’s why I love listening to, speaking with, and reading the editorial from Vern and our other editors. It brings a perspective and an angle that I might not have always first considered. It’s people like Vern that help me to be better at what I do, and I have no doubt will help you to be a better investor too.
And it’s why I think you need people like him in your corner as much as someone like me.
Your one shot to get on the priority list
As mentioned above, Vern and I both come from the same industry, and I know we both agree that it’s just not a system that’s functional for people like you.
These big financial planning dealer groups, the bank-aligned planners, the industry funds, they’re all in it for themselves and not really in it for you.
They’re conflicted, biased, and rarely truly independent in a way that gives you all the information you need to make smart choices. And that means there’s a massive scarcity of the kind of advice you really need in the Aussie market.
Which is exactly why Vern has just launched The Gowdie Advisory.
There’s no bias from Vern. No alignment to a fund, bank, dealer group…Vern’s new advisory is all about how investors should manage their wealth — and in a time like this how to protect it with so much uncertainty and volatility.
He will tell you like it is, without the spin, without the financial planning lingo — he’ll give it to you straight and help you to take action in your wealth strategy.
I think you’d be crazy not to have a look at what Vern’s talking about and really consider what steps you’ve got in place for your overall wealth picture right now.
If you want to see what The Gowdie Advisory is about, and what Vern’s talking about right now, jump onto the priority list to get access.
The priority list is the only way you’ll be able to consider The Gowdie Advisory. And as a sneak peek as to what you can expect, the moment you join the priority list you’ll get free access to a call Vern had with our founder, Bill Bonner, where they talk about protecting family wealth today.
You can join the priority list here. I suggest you do so right now.
With that said, I also know that there are some things that Vern just doesn’t agree with me on, like crypto. Again, that’s OK and even more reason why you need to consider the views and advice from a number of our editors.
It could be crypto and exponential stock investing with Ryan Dinse, maximising the opportunities from periods of crisis (like right now) from Greg Canavan, or the eternally optimistic views of Ryan Clarkson-Ledward or Lachlann Tierney.
The point is, when you combine the knowledge and ideas from a few angles, you’ll find you get a more rounded view of what’s going on, and importantly, how you can roll that out with your own strategy, goals, and vision for what your wealth picture looks like down the track.
Knowledge is power, they weren’t kidding when they said that, whoever said it first. And the right knowledge applied at the right time — coming from the right sources — gives you every fighting chance to beat the market in booms, busts, and everything in between.
Regards,
Sam Volkering,
Editor, Money Morning
PS: Why Bitcoin Is Unstoppable — The story of bitcoin’s rise and the case for holding some now. Claim your copy now.
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