As a rube of 19 I strode into a wood paneled brokerage office downtown for the first time. The broker was a friend of a friend, about age 30 and my mom knew his mom. He came from a "good family." I plunked down a thousand dollars and acquired a sliver of a money losing airline. I bought two other stocks that year. My broker was making peanuts from my account. I made even less!
Soon he suggested that I might want to get into corn futures. No doubt he was thinking only of his job security and income. I stuck with stocks, later added some bonds, and gradually learned some things, including to move my account to a discount broker. Later I discovered Vanguard and largely kissed off brokers altogether. By the time I started earning some real money, I was on the right investing track.
Perhaps because of the recent noise about the fiduciary rule I've thought a lot lately about my first broker's attempt to lure me into an utterly inappropriate commodity crapshoot. The laws of my state barred minors from gambling; my broker was pressuring me to gamble!
Watching this fiduciary debate play out.
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Because the Good Life is Just a Pump or Two Away
