My Comments: Which approach is best for you? Not for me, but for YOU?

For the past dozen years or more, my efforts on behalf of clients to use historically good fund managers has largely failed. And not just because of what happened in 2008-09.

Yes, I still made my money as an advisor. But increasingly I couldn’t justify it in terms of the results. Many clients, listening to the likes of Jim Cramer on TV, decided they could get better results elsewhere. I hope they were successful but the odds were not in their favor. If you follow the link below, you’ll better understand why I say this.

My approach today is to use one of the two major global index families and either give away my advice to those who will accept it, or charge what a few years ago was considered a ridiculously low fee. Some people just have absolutely no capacity to figure it out for themselves which is what gives people like me a license earn an income.

Clients have two basic choices: either do it all yourself, of find someone to help you. Regardless of that decision, the next step on the decision tree is how much unprotected exposure to the stock, bond and other markets can you live with.

The trauma from the crash in 2008-09 is still very much alive in peoples minds. To the extent you want exposure to the markets and at the same time protect your downside, there are some very clear solutions. To the extent you are OK with watching your assets crash and burn, indexes at least eliminate most of the management costs. This is a good thing.

Either way, I can sleep at night and not feel like caveat emptor is the ruling maxim.