Charlatanism

Successful investing is not the dark art you might think it is.

There are many vested interests that hope you continue to believe successful investing is beyond you. For a percentage of your wealth they will happily bamboozle and scare you into thinking that they are God’s gift to investing.

Of course, if they were, they would simply get on with it with their money and be immensely wealthy. But they aren’t so they need to convince you to part with yours so they can earn their percentage. If they can keep you (and many others) on the hook for long enough they become immensely wealthy. See the opening scenes of “The Wolf Of Wall Street” – never was a truer word spoken.

The truth is that the odds of investing success are hugely stacked in your favour and easily achieved. All you need to do is not get in the way of those odds.

A bold statement? Maybe. It does require agreement with three facts, as follows:

1. The sole purpose of investing is to grow money (after all costs including tax) at a rate that, on average, is greater than inflation. In this way you get wealthier.
2. The global economy on average grows at a faster rate than average global inflation. The world is getting richer. This trend will continue.
3. It’s the great companies of the world (rather than governments) that grow the global economy and the growth in their profits and value reflects this.

Therefore, if you wish to become wealthier you need do no more than be an owner of the great companies of the world and remain an owner of them for life.

The good news is that this can be done at a very modest cost, certainly less than 0.2% pa of the money invested.

From time to time there will be temporary interruptions to the growing wealth of the world and the companies creating that growth. It is at these times you must remain steadfast and not interrupt the natural course of things.

The long-term upward trend will reassert itself soon enough and your gains greater than inflation will resume and wealthier and wealthier you will get.

Anyone who ever tried to convince you otherwise is little more than a charlatan.