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Don't Feed the Vultures: Everything Anyone Needs To Know About Investing

by Stephen Doud

60 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #06-2034; ISBN 1-4251-0277-8; US$15.95, C$18.34, EUR13.10, £9.17

Investment advisors don't get rich by "beating the market". They get rich by managing Other People's Money (OPM) for outrageous fees. You can do it yourself cheaper with better results.

About the Book

Don't Feed The Vultures provides insight into the world of professional money management. The book strives to define the difference between the high risk complex strategies pursued by the big money institutional investors and what investments are appropriate for individual investors who have made some money and would like to make it work for them. It details the important things an investor really needs to know, and it gives examples of how to construct a low cost, diversified portfolio. It also illustrates how managed accounts with fees based on a percentage of assets are a license to steal.

Personal investing is not as difficult as the financial services marketers try to make it sound. The advent of no-load index mutual funds and the newer exchange traded funds provide the diversification an investor needs, and they traditionally generate better returns than actively managed accounts. Best of all, the inherent low expenses allow the investor to keep the money earned by his portfolio rather than turning it over as fees to an investment advisor.

Many people don't want to deal with the stress of investing their own money, and are more than happy to pay an advisor for the service of doing it for them. There are certainly quite a few professionals that do a good job of providing investment advice and managing portfolios. But nearly all of them charge way too much to do it. Don't Feed The Vultures simplifies the financial marketplace into terms the individual investor can understand, and offers suggestions on how to participate in the long term growth of the equity markets without giving up a significant portion of your portfolio's gains to an investment advisor.

About the Author

Steve Doud began managing equity portfolios in 1972, shortly after graduating from the University of Iowa in 1971 - and long before most people even knew what a mutual fund was. He moved to Texas following graduation and joined Dallas based Charter Fund (now the AIM Charter Fund) in 1975, earned his MBA from Southern Methodist University the same year, and achieved the CFA designation in 1976.

In 1990 he and three colleagues formed Gulfstream Global Investors, Ltd., an independent investment management organization specializing in international equity investments. Notable clients included Northrop Corporation, American Airlines, H-E-B and Rosewood Corporation. In 2000 they sold the firm to WestDeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale (also known as WestLB), one of the largest banks in Germany, and Steve retired from active money management in 2004 after 32 years as a portfolio manager.

Excerpts