vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
"Not sure how I came across the Motley Fool blog in the first instance, but found the writing style refreshing - then along came some free advice on ASX share prospects, then the next day and email expounding the benefits I would get by joining up for two years at 60% off if I hit the button ""now"", getting in at ground floor on the next technology stock rocket - I replied: ""What a hard sell - why wouldn't I apply the age old adage of "" If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is"" Their reply was; ""Thanks for your note. The honest answer is that despite people knowing they should do something to help themselves prepare for their financial futures, few actually do it. We find these messages actually work in getting people to hit 'yes', much better than an understated email that just says 'here are our results and our philosophy - let us know if you're interested', unfortunately. Yours Foolishly"" So I have put some of these recommendations onto a watch list, time will tell."
"I would strongly recommend the following: How to Win Friends &amp; Influence People, 10x Rule, Built to Last, Good To Great, &amp; The Innovators Dilemma  How to Win Friends &amp; Influence People completely reshaped how I approach interactions with people both in &amp; out of the work place - its worth picking up your own copy so you can refresh yourself every now &amp; then.   The Innovators Dilemma by Clayton Christensen is one of those classic MBA starter kit books about product ideation &amp; distruptive technologies in the market.   10x Rule is a solid ""beat your chest &amp; take on the world"" type of self improvement books. I'd suggest the audio book as the guy's energy is quite compelling.   Built To Last &amp; Good To Great are all about organizational leadership &amp; are just all around great books if you're into team building.   I'd also suggest googling ""Pragmatic Marketing"" &amp; picking up whatever they're plugging as the next latest &amp; greatest book on product leadership. It's very much geared towards SaaS product management &amp; agile development but there's good lessons to be learned for all professions. Also a Random Walk Down Wall Street is a go-to as well as pretty much anything by Warren Buffet."
First--and I'm only repeating what has been said already--roboadvisors are a great way to avoid paying high MERs and still not have to do much yourself. The Canadian Couch Potato method is great IF you are disciplined and spend the time every few months to regularly re-balance your portfolio. However, any savings you gain in low MERs is going to very likely be lost if you aren't re-balancing or if you aren't patient and disciplined in your investing. For that reason, the Couch Potato way isn't appropriate for 97% of the general population in my opinion. But if you are reading this, you probably already aren't a member of the general population. For myself, life seems always too busy and I've got a kid on the way. I see a huge value in using a robo-advisor (or alternatively Tangerine) and saving time in my day. The next question, which robo-advisor is best? I did a bunch of research here and my conclusion is that they are all fairly similar. My final three came down to Wealthbar/Wealthsimple/NestWeatlh. Price structures vary, but minus a few dollars here or there, there isn't a lot of difference in costs. What made WealthSimple stick out was that they provide some options for US citizens that help me prevent tax headaches. They also got back to me by email with really detailed answers when I had questions, which was really appreciated. Their site and monthly updates are minimalist and intuitive to navigate. Great user experience all around (I do web design myself). My gut feeling is that they have their act together and will stick around as a company for a long while.
No such evidence exists, because many people do beat the market. And many people fail to earn market rate of return. The way you achieve the former is generally to take risks that also increase the likelihood of the latter. The amount of time and effort you invest may bias that result, but generally risk and potential reward tend to track pretty closely since everyone else is making the same evaluations. You can't prove a negative. We can't prove unicorns don't exist either. We can advise you that hunting for one is probably not productive; many others have been trying, and if there was one we'd probably have seen at least something that encourages us to continue looking. Not impossible, but the evidence is far from encouraging. Market-rate-of-return can be achieved fairy reliably with minimal risk and minimal effort, and at mostly long-term tax rates. I consider that sufficient for my needs. Others will feel otherwise.
"Many of my friends said I should invest my money on stocks or something else, instead of put them in the bank forever. I do not know anything about finance, so my questions are: First let me say that your friends may have the best intentions, but don't trust them. It has been my experience that friends tell you what they would do if they had your money, and not what they would actually do with their money. Now, I don't mean that they would be malicious, or that they are out to get you. What I do mean, is why would you take advise from someone about what they would do with 100k when they don't have 100k. I am in your financial situation (more or less), and I have friends that make more then I do, and have no savings. Or that will tell you to get an IRA -so-and-so but don't have the means (discipline) to do so. Do not listen to your friends on matters of money. That's just good all around advise. Is my financial status OK? If not, how can I improve it? Any financial situation with no or really low debt is OK. I would say 5% of annual income in unsecured debt, or 2-3 years in annual income in secured debt is a good place to be. That is a really hard mark to hit (it seems). You have hit it. So your good, right now. You may want to ""plan for the future"". Immediate goals that I always tell people, are 6 months of income stuck in a liquid savings account, then start building a solid investment situation, and a decent retirement plan. This protects you from short term situations like loss of job, while doing something for the future. Is now a right time for me to see a financial advisor? Is it worthy? How would she/he help me? Rather it's worth it or not to use a financial adviser is going to be totally opinion based. Personally I think they are worth it. Others do not. I see it like this.
"I know a fellow who has spent a few decades coaching large WMs at many major firms, and who has been extremely successful for them.  This ""destination vacation"" format referral development has been very successful - invite one of your whales on a genuine getaway (not just a golf outing, but rather, a private jet to a deep sea fishing weekend, or as close to that as you can get in your budget), and ask him to bring a few friends."
The fund prospectus is a good place to start.
The expert clearly has a trust fund. Been doing 7 days a week for 2 months and been fine with it. Right up until had to pack up and keep one eye on fucking horizon for the last week watching for fire. Little tough to keep mind on work while your friends lose their homes.
I am very happy with Charles Schwab.  I use both their investing tools and banking tool, but I don't do much investing besides buy more shares a random mutual fund I purchase 4 years ago I did once need to call in about an IRA rollover and I got a person on the phone immediately who answered my questions and followed up as he said he would. It is anecdotal, but I am happy with them.
Clearly you respect him but I just question if you would still respect him if he didn't have all that money. He is definitely not an intellectual or a tactical heavy hitter. He has shown some very good strategies but they more often than not require a lot of upfront money to be able to weather any temporal bad results.  I can definitely applaud him for not being an idiot who burns through an enormous wealth in a short period of time.
"I would be more than happy to find a good use for your money. ;-) Well, you have a bunch of money far in excess of your regular expenses. The standard things are usually: If you are very confused, it's probably worth spending some of your windfall to hire professional help. It beats you groping in the dark and possibly doing something stupid. But as you've seen, not all ""professionals"" are equal, and finding a good one is another can of worms. If you can find a good one, it's probably worth it. Even better would be for you to take the time and thoroughly educate yourself about investment (by reading books), and then make a knowledgeable decision. Being a casual investor (ie. not full time trader) you will likely arrive, like many do, at a portfolio that is mostly a mix of S&P ETFs and high grade (eg. govt and AAA corporate) bonds, with a small part (5% or so) in individual stock and other more complicated securities. A good financial advisor will likely recommend something similar (I've had good luck with the one at my credit union), and can guide you through the details and technicalities of it all. A word of caution: Since you remark about your car and house, be careful about upgrading your lifestyle. Business is good now and you can afford nicer things, but maybe next year it's not so good. What if you are by then too used to the high life to give it up, and end up under mountains of debt? Humans are naturally optimistic, but be wary of this tendency when making assumptions about what you will be able to afford in the future. That said, if you really have no idea, hey, take a nice vacation, get an art tutor for the kids, spend it (well, ideally not all of it) on something you won't regret. Investments are fickle, any asset can crash tomorrow and ruin your day. But often experiences are easier to judge, and less likely to lose value over time."
I won't be able to model stock prices using this information.  The pros aren't likely to use Google as much. Even the casual investor is likely to have his own habits. For example, I've come to like how Yahoo permits me to set up a portfolio and follow the stocks I want. And the information that interests me is there, laid out nicely, price, history, insider trades, news etc.  But your effort probably still has some discovery value, as it will help you understand when interest in a company suddenly swells above normal. Nothing wrong with a good project like that. Just don't expect to extract too much market-beating success from it. The pros will eat your lunch, take your money, and not even say thanks. Welcome to Money.SE.
The answers you've received already are very good. I truly sympathize with your situation. In general, it makes sense to try to build off of existing relationships. Here are a few ideas: I don't know if you work for a small or large company, or local/state government. But if there is any kind of retirement planning through your workplace, make sure to investigate that. Those people are usually already paid something for their services by your employer, so they should have less of an interest in making money off you directly. One more thought: A no-fee brokerage company e.g. Charles Schwab. They offer a free one hour phone call with an investment adviser if you invest at least $25K. I personally had very good experiences with them. This answer may be too anecdotal and not specifically address the annuity dilemma you mentioned. That annunity dilemma is why you need to find someone you can trust, who is competent (see the credentials for financial advisers mentioned in the other answers), and will work the numbers out with you.
Considering a CFP will likely use the same planning software as any other advisor...just hire an advisor with a clean broker check and solid educational background that doesn't come off as a sleazy sales person.   Not to say that a CFP doesn't say ANYTHING about qualifications, but really it's just a marketing ploy from a business perspective.
Dave Ramsey has a list of ELPs (Endorsed Local Providers) of which I've only heard good things.  You can request an investment ELP here.
You should seek the help of a financial consulting company when your long-term savings plan, which you were grossly misled about and was neglected / mismanaged by the OP and is now worth half the face value of your investments to date.
If you are looking for an advisor to just build a portfolio and then manage it, a robo-advisor can be beneficial (especially if the alternative is doing it your self, assuming that you are not well versed in the markets). The primary risk with one is that it does not build a portfolio that accurately represents your needs and risk tolerance. Some firms base the number of questions they ask you on sign up based not on what is needed to get a good profile, but on how many before people decide that it is too much hassle and bail. That usually results in poorer profiles. Also a live advisor may be better at really getting at your risk tolerance. Many of day our risk tolerance is one thing but in reality we are not so risk tolerant.  Once the profile is built. The algorithms maintain your portfolio on a day by day basis. If rebalancing opportunities occur they take advantage of it.  The primary benefit of a robo-advisor is lower fees or smaller minimum account balances. The downside is the lack of human interaction and financial advise outside of putting together a portfolio.
"While I've never used Wall Street Survivor, I took a look over the marketing materials and I've seen multiple similar contests run among investment interns also just out of college.  I see some good here and some bad. First off, I love interactive web-based tutorials.  I've used one to learn the syntax of a new programming language and I find the instant feedback and the ability to work at your own pace very useful.  The reviews seem to say that Wall Street Survivor is a good way to learn the basics of how trading stocks works and the lingo.  Also, it seems pretty fun which I've found helps a lot. Wall Street Survivor will hopefully teach you that there are many real stock markets and that they may have somewhat different prices and they likely take the real and timely data from a single market. Wall Street Survivor also frightens me.  The big problem that I see with interns running similar contests is that the market is extremely random over short to medium periods of time.  An intern can make an awful portfolio or even pick stocks at random and still win the contest.  These interns know a lot about the randomness in markets already so they don't believe they are trading geniuses because they won a contest, I'm not sure there is much to temper this view on this web-site. Also, while Wall Street Survivor teaches you about trading it doesn't appear to teach you about investing.  The website appears to encourage short term views and changing positions a lot and doesn't seem to simulate the full trading costs (including fees) that would eat away at the gains of a individual investor that trades that much.  It gives some help with longer term thinking like diversification, but also seems to encourage trading that makes Wall Street Survivor more money, but are likely detrimental to the user. I would say have fun with Wall Street Survivor. Let it teach you some things about trading, but don't give the site much if any money.  At the same time, pick up a copy of short book called ""A Random Walk Down Wall Street"" and start learning about investing at the same time.  Feel free to come back to Stack Exchange with questions along the way."
Picking a handful of the heavyweight stocks as you mention might give you better returns in 30 years, but it could just as easily give you worse. And the current data suggest the latter is more likely. ""Heavyweights"" come and go (who were they 30 years ago?) and just like how the other 450 companies may seem right now as dragging down the portfolio, just as easily a handful of them can emerge as the new heavyweights. Guaranteed? No. Possible? Yes. Jack Bogle is simply saying low cost indexing is one of the better strategies for the average person, given the data. But nowhere is it guaranteed that in this lifetime (e.g. next 30 years) will provide the best outcome. Berkshire on the other hand are in the business of chasing maximum outcomes (mid or short term returns). It's two different concepts that shouldn't be mixed together in my opinion."
The advisors on these kinds of accounts are mutual funds managers, and they try to match a target portfolio, but they can do things like realize gains or losses for clients if their tax situation would prefer it. You certainly can't let them put retirement accounts into your single account unless the IRS has you on their list of acceptable custodians. I suggest that you familiarize yourself thoroughly with the regulatory environment that you want to operate under. Then, after examining the pros and cons, you should decide which route you want to take. I think the most direct and feasible route is to pass the Series 65, register as an investment advisor, and find a custodian who will let you manage the assets as the advisor on the account. Real estate is another matter, you should talk to an attorney, not some random guy on the internet (even if he has an MBA and a BS in Real Estate, which I do). This is very much a state law thing.
"Index funds do leech a ""free ride"" on the coattails of active traders.  Consider what would happen if literally everyone bought index funds.  For a company there would be no motivation to excel. Get listed; all the index funds are forced to buy your stock; now sit on your derriere playing Freecell, or otherwise scam/loot the company.  Go bankrupt. Rinse wash repeat.  This ""who cares who John Galt is"" philosophy would kill the economy dead.   Somebody has to actually buy stocks based on research, analysis and value.  Company managers need to actively fear, respect and court those people.  They don't need to be mutual-fund managers, but they do need to be somebody.  Maybe activist investors like Warren Buffett will suffice.  Maybe retirement fund or endowment managers like CalPERS or Harvard can do this.  Better be somebody!  I'm all for index funds... Just saying only a fraction of the market's capital can be in index funds before it starts into a tragedy of the commons."
&gt;I love UCSB, I love the people, the atmosphere, my fraternity, and the weather. Why leave? I don't see the upside to doing so. &gt;However, I'm getting to a point in my life where the decisions I make are becoming much more important, and I am willing to sacrifice what I have developed at UCSB for more opportunities to break into Ibanking/PE/hedge funds Why? What's the reason? Money? There's nothing wrong with wanting money, however please understand your motivation for wanting to go into ibanking and make sure it'll make you happy. I work in the hedge fund world (analyst). It's interesting and I personally enjoy it a great deal. That said the majority of the traders I know are constantly talking about quitting and doing something meaningful with life. Do what you *enjoy* and if that happens to be finance, go for it. Your biggest challenge in ibanking is getting in the room. I think networking helps for that, I imagine the internet is full of resources on that. And then surviving once you do - that part always seems the hardest. There's a lot of ex-ibankers out there. My girlfriend was an investment banker for a spell. I asked her and she said ""do interesting things, get good grades, work hard, and learn Excel"". She said that for one of her interviews they pretty much talked about food the whole time and partying in France. So go figure."
"That sucks, I liked his first and second books (the only ones I've read). I was still in my late teens, and RDPD was the first personal improvement (or personal financial improvement if you must) book I've ever read. It really got me hooked on the whole personal improvement thing, and on fixing my then-abysmal financial situation. It had a ton of good advice, and I still use it to this day. It's a very good primer book, to help you let go of the worker bee mentality, and pick up the businessman mentality. To anyone who wants to start a business and has no prior experience with ""making money,"" it's still the first book I would recommend. It's extremely easy to read, and most of the advice is solid. The guy (forgot his name, he has an entire site about it) who goes around criticizing Kiyosaki on his ""bad advice"" is actually dead wrong on a lot of his points. Not all, but enough to make me not take him seriously. Not ALL the advice in the book is perfect, mind you, but most of it is very good, and hence the book is a good one overall. You can read it in a day or two (or even an evening), and it really gets you hooked on making money - you can then channel that enthusiasm into harder, longer and more detailed books. Worked for me."
"My master's thesis was on using genetic algorithms and candle stick method.  If you are familiar, the AI was used to answer questions like ""what is a long day"", which is not formally defined in most candle stick texts.   So in theory unlimited potential for learning including teaching machines to learn.  Wall street pays pretty well for such developers, and if you are young and single man Manhattan is pretty sweet place to be. In practicality your formula for building wealth is the same as everyone else's:  get out of debt, build an emergency fund, and invest.  Initially invest in growth stock mutual funds through a 401K (assuming US)."
Neal Neilinger is registered with the SEC as an Investment Consultant, which is defined as someone who is paid out to offer advice about securities. Investment consultants can also be paid to manage expense portfolios or offer economic planning expert services. Other terms commonly used for investment consultants include Investment Advisor Associate (IAR) and Authorized Investment Advisor (RIA).
The Bible of fundamental analysis was written by Graham and Dodd, and is titled Security Analysis. If you don't know the name Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffet was his student and attribute his own success to Graham.  If Security Analysis is a bit too intense for you, Graham also wrote The Intelligent Investor which is probably a better starting point.
No, but insider information would have tipped them off on the timings of when to time some of their actions... possibly planning shorting it ahead, all kinds of who-diggery that those financial wizards can do to make shit tons of money off stocks / companies losing money.
9 Capital in The Twenty First Century by Thomas Piketty   8 The Art of Strategy by Dixitt and Nalebuff   7 Against the God's by Peter Bernstein   6 The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb   5 The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham   4 Money: Master the Game by Tony Robbins   3 Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman   2 The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman   1 The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg    ... Kind of meh choices really.
You're asking for a LOT. I mean, entire lives and volumes upon volumes of information is out there.  I'd recommend Benjamin Graham for finance concepts (might be a little bit dry...), *A Random Walk Down Wall Street,* by Burton Malkiel and *A Concise Guide to Macro Economics* by David Moss.