The Investor Coaching Show with Paul Winkler

In a two-part episode, Paul interviews Dr. John Kennedy from Trevecca University. Dr. Kennedy began his career as an accountant and now teaches research methods, statistical analysis, and psychological testing classes as a member of Trevecca’s counseling department and practicing national certified counselor. Paul and John talk about the importance of psychology and mental health and how financial health is first a battle of the mind. Listen along as the two share their experience in the field of psychology, research, and financial planning to help you navigate your own feelings and thoughts in today’s world. 

In a two-part episode, Paul interviews Dr. John Kennedy from Trevecca University. Dr. Kennedy began his career as an accountant and now teaches research methods, statistical analysis, and psychological testing classes as a member of Trevecca’s counseling department and practicing national certified counselor. Paul and John, talk about the importance of psychology and mental health and how financial health is first a battle of the mind. Listen along as the two share their experience in the field of psychology, research, and financial planning to help you navigate your own feelings and thoughts in today’s world. 

What age did you start investing? Paul teaches a personal finance class at Trevecca, and this was one of many questions he wasn’t able to answer in time. This question starts Paul and Ira on a great conversation about their first experiences with investing and selling investment products. Listen along as Ira shares his first experiences in the industry and Paul shares a guiding philosophy that has helped him in investing. Later in the show, the advisors share about why the American Dream Experience can help people step into conversations about saving, purpose, and investing while avoiding some of the most common mistakes.

Actively managed portfolios usually have high fees and are full of strategies that lower the diversification of your investment and engage in market timing and speculation. As a result, the industry has another product for the more conservative investor – index funds. There are more than 3 million index funds available on the market in 2024. They are sold as a great way to capture market returns at incredibly low costs. In a two-part episode, Paul helps you become an educated investor by explaining what indexing is and why these products aren’t a good solution to the problem of actively managed funds. 

Actively managed portfolios usually have high fees and are full of strategies that lower the diversification of your investments and engage in market timing and speculation. As a result, the industry has another product for the more conservative investor — index funds. There are more than three million index funds available on the market in 2024. They are sold as a great way to capture market returns at incredibly low costs. In this two-part episode, Paul helps you become an educated investor by explaining what indexing is and why these products aren’t a good solution to the problem of actively managed funds. 

For more information about what we do or how we can help you, schedule a 15-minute call with us here: paulwinkler.com/call. 

Paul and Ira talk about an article from the Federal Trade Commission about scammers using QR codes to steal your personal information. After Paul received a piece of mail with a QR code on it last week that seemingly offered a deal on something if he scanned it, he warns that these codes can be used for more than just easy access to a website. Later in the episode, Paul talks about a snapchat feature that is feeding the insecurities of teens. 

The whole premise behind Target Date Funds is that investors only need to choose a date they want to retire and then check out of the investing process. What’s worse is that all the major companies market these products as long term investment, but barely include any of the asset categories that have historically performed the best over long periods of time. Today, Paul and Ira talk about why the default investment of your 401(k) is likely a bad option and why many American workers are being set up to work past the date of their target date fund. Later in the episode, Paul talks about the reality of retirement for single women in America and the challenges that arise from lower pay, longer life expectancy, and no partner.  

Paul was mentioned on the radio early this week by Matt Murphy who pretty accurately characterizes Paul’s thoughts on crypto in your portfolio: you shouldn’t have any. Paul wants to set the record straight because he’s heard some misinformation about his thoughts on crypto. He likens having crypto in your portfolio to having arsenic in your diet — it’s just not a good idea. Listen along as Paul explains where the misinformation about crypto is coming from, if crypto is a currency or an investment, and what people need to know to avoid this kind of trap. In the second half of the episode, Paul talks about Bitcoin, the gold standard, and the current US Dollar, and explains why we have moved away from our currency’s value being determined by the value of a commodity. 

After a few years of inflation, CD interest rates have risen up to around 5%. This has an investor asking Paul why he would take the risk to invest in market segments with historic 5% returns, like international companies, when he could just recommend CDs instead. Paul explains why you can’t compare the average return of international stocks over 20+ years to the return of CDs for the next few years – it just doesn’t add up.