When to Ignore Conventional Financial Advice

Hey everybody.
So nowadays, with the internet providing everybody and her mom with access to financial advice, I'm sure that everyone who aspires to be more financially savvy has come across "conventional financial advice". Conventional financial advice is stuff like "pay off your credit card debt", "establish an 8-month emergency savings fund", "contribute the maximum to your 401(k) plan" and "start saving for retirement in utero". :-) And for the most part, this "conventional" financial advice is tried and true and sound. It's well meaning. It's meant to keep you out of financial trouble and it usually does. I mean, how can effectively earning a rate of return of 20% on your money by paying down high interest credit cards hurt you? The problem with most financial advice is that it doesn't take into account your emotions and how you feel about your money.

This isn't exactly a novel concept, but a lot of times, our money issues are not so much economic in nature, as they are emotional in nature. And I've found, in my own life, that's it's important to make decisions that make me feel particularly empowered - whether or not they are the most direct path to a financial goal.In keeping with the title of this post, here are some pieces of financial advice you can ignore and I will also state when you can ignore them.

1. PAY OFF ALL OF YOUR DEBT AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE
You'll hear the financial experts spouting this maxim all of the time. And with good reason, the high interest rates that credit card companies charge you, coupled with the fact that such interest is compounded so quickly, makes it in your best interest to get it out of your hair as quickly as possible. But this maxim neglects to take into account the fact that a lot of times, people get into credit card debt not because of outrageous spending habits, but because they had an unexpected expense and didn't have savings to cover it.

In these harsh economic times, people might have to rely on their credit cards to get them through to the next payday. Although it's not preferable, it makes sense to use a line of credit when you have nowhere else to turn financially. But there's a way to avoid this situation altogether. I recommend that you pay as much as you can to your credit card company, but that you save 10% of your income religiously. Part of my rule comes from the conventional financial advice of pay yourself first, but it has a different rationale. When you save 10% of your income and build up an emergency fund, you can take a portion of that emergency fund (let's say half) at some point in the future and make an even more substantial payment toward your credit card balance(s). Also, as a result of having an emergency fund, you won't have to rack up credit card debt every time something unexpected comes up.

Moral of the story: if you find yourself always having to rely on your credit card for necessities even though you pay more than the minimum every month, try continuing to pay more than the minimum, but saving as much as you possibly can (using what extra money you would have put toward your credit card debt to build up decent savings for a rainy day). Having a savings fund will make you feel more empowered and in charge of your financial future, even if you take slightly longer to pay off your debt. And when you feel empowered about your financial situation, you are much more likely to make positive decisions regarding your money.

2. LIVING BELOW YOUR MEANS IS THE BEST WAY TO SAVE.
Once again, this maxim above is well-intentioned and is preached in order to prevent people from "balling out of control" or living a profligate lifestyle. But it just isn't true. I'm sure all of us have tried cutting expenses, clipping coupons, and denying ourselves the little wordly pleasures. But the problem with this is that aside from it being no fun, you can only cut expenses so much. Mr. Inflation - the father of all evil - will not look at your paycheck and say hey, "she's living below her means, so I guess I'll cut her a break and stop making prices go up". Things will keep on getting expensive no matter how much we cut back on luxuries. So, the best way to save and get ahead is to expand those means, while continuing to live beneath them.

How can you go about expanding those means? Well, usually taking on another job is no fun, so try to find something that you enjoy doing to earn extra income. Sell old items on eBay. Try babysitting your neighbor's child or DJ'ing  at your local bar. If you played in a band in college, start playing around your city again. I know a whole lot of people are cobbling together multiple jobs nowadays, but if you're one of those fortunate souls who has a job that pays enough to live on, having a side gig might help you expand those means even more in addition to your annual raise.

Moral of the story: if you're feeling squeezed financially, continue living below your means, but constantly be on the look out for ways to increase your income. Treat your own personal finances like a business and always grow your revenue. A company that had to rely solely on cutting expenses would soon go out of business because it would have to eventually begin cutting employees. And of course you can't run a company without employees. Similarly, you can't outpace inflation indefinitely by trying to do more with less.

3. CONTRIBUTE THE MAXIMUM AMOUNT POSSIBLE TO YOUR 401(K).
As with all of the other conventional financial advice, I understand why the experts spout this piece too. Most 401(k) plans have a matching plan where they will put in a certain amount of money if you contribute a certain amount. And although I advocate contributing to your 401(k) plan and preparing for retirement, I'm also an advocate of only contributing the amount necessary to get the company match. After that, I recommend contributing the maximum amount possible ($5,000 in 2012) to a Roth IRA, for multiple reasons. A 401(k) usually has very limited investing options, and the more limited you are, the less likely you are to earn an outsized return on your money. Second, because 401(k)s are tax deferred as opposed to tax exempt Roth IRAs, there are withdrawal penalties even for the money that one has contributed, in addition to  tax penalties for money withdrawn before 59.5 yrs. old. Roth IRAs have penalties for early withdrawals also, but you can withdraw all of the money that you contribute to it without penalty because the money you contribute is after-tax money. Moreover, you can use up to $10,000 in contributions and capital gains to purchase your first home or pay for qualifying educational expenses.

Moral of the story: a Roth IRA is a much more flexible home for your investment dollars, so it's better to max that out than tying up your money in a 401(k) plan just because you get a company match. What's more, you feel so much more empowered when you know that you are saving for retirement AND have ready access to your money when you need it. In fact, although I recommend having a separate savings account, I think it's okay to use your Roth IRA as a savings fund. In the worst case scenario, you will only incur trading costs and maybe miss out on potential stock gains, but this negative series of events doesn't compare to the harsh financial penalties of withdrawing from your 401(k) prematurely.

There are plenty of other pieces of conventional financial advice that one should ignore, even though in general I think the conventional wisdom is right. But when making financial decisions, you should try to strike a balance between achieving the highest rate of return on your money and feeling more secure/confident/stronger about your financial situation as a result of your decisions. Let me know if you think of any piece of financial advice that doesn't make sense to you and we can try to figure out together if you should disregard it. Until next time...

Investing Tutorial - Part 4 (Stock Valuation)

Last post, we were still talking about valuation metrics. We stopped on the metric of price to book value and today, we will discuss what I believe to be the most useful valuation metric of all when valuing a stock - price to free cash flow (FCF).

I will be explicit about the definition of free cash flow, but let me first explain why I think the other metrics are inferior to it. The reason that I believe price to free cash flow is the most useful metric of margin of safety, or how expensive a stock is, is because there are a whole lot of really intelligent and clever accountants who work in the corporate finance departments of major companies. These very intelligent accountants also have a mandate from corporate management to make earnings numbers look as good as they are allowed to, within the legal boundaries of "GAAP"  (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). When accountants "massage" earnings numbers or engage in other financial sleight of hand, it's hard to get a true grasp on the "E" in the P/E ratio. Similarly, these same accountants can manipulate the value of assets and liabilities on a corporate balance sheet (at least temporarily), and this means it's hard to trust the price to book value ratio. Recall that in our last post, we defined book value as total assets minus total liabilities. Free cash flow on the other hand - well, it's hard to fake that. To paraphrase the saying, free cash flow is king!

So, what exactly is free cash flow? Well, there's a complex formula that's used to calculate it and if you're a stickler for details, you can find it here. But in layman's terms, it is the money that is left over to pay shareholders dividends after the company has used the money necessary to continue day to day operations. Here's an example. Let's say you own a small trucking company with a fleet of five trucks, all of which you use on a daily basis. Let's also assume that 3 of the 5 trucks break down. If you absolutely must have all 5 trucks in order to conduct business, then you have to either fix the 3 trucks that are not working or buy 3 new trucks. The money that is left over at the end of the year after making the necessary repairs/new purchases is free cash flow. 

Some investing experts suggest that a thumbnail method of calculating free cash flow is by subtracting "capex" or capital expenditures from operating cash flow. (It should be noted that capex can be found in the investing section of a company's statement of cash flows. Operating cash flow can be found at the bottom of the "Operating Activities" of a company's statement of cash flows. And all of a company's financial statements can be found in its quarterly and annual filings at the Securities and Exchange Commission's website.

To bring it all together, when you use the price to free cash flow metric, you are essentially figuring out how much a company is charging you for it to make money for you. It's kinda like a recent college graduate asking you how many times his yearly salary of $40,000 are you willing to pay for him to fork over his entire lifetime earnings. I believe that most people would say that paying $160,000 (4x his current salary) for his life time earnings would be a steal. Even $200,000 or $240,000 still seems like a steal. But the higher the multiple of his current salary gets, the harder it is to justify paying for that stream of income. The same goes for stocks as their multiples of price to free cash flow goes higher and higher.

Remember, with the price to free cash flow ratio, you are paying a certain factor of a company's earnings stream. When you are getting a large earnings stream for really cheap or a reasonable price, you do not have to worry as much about your growth projections being wrong - so long as the company has a history of steady production of a certain amount of cash flow.

In our next post, we will talk about some common personal finance wisdom that you can go against because doing so actually empowers you. Until next time...

Investing Tutorial - Part 3 (Stock Valuation)

Last post, we talked about stock valuation metrics and how they relate to the concept of "margin of safety". I said I would give a clearer idea of what this is in my last post, so here goes. Margin of safety is assurance, by a specific margin (usually in the 20 to 40% range, but the larger the better), that the stock or bond you are buying is worth significantly more than what you are paying (i.e. its current price). But, margin of safety is a very amorphous term because it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the true intrinsic value of a  company (what the company is truly worth).

The process by which stock analysts and others who invest for a living determine what a stock is actually worth is called discounted cash flow analysis.  This process is based on the premise that a company is only worth the sum of its earnings discounted back to some present value, where the discounting factor is the sum of the yield on U.S. treasury bonds plus some desired additional rate of return. For a visual lesson on how to perform a discounted cash flow analysis on your own, check out the video below.

After determining how much a company is worth using a discounted cash flow analysis, you should compare that value (make sure to divide the company value by the number of shares outstanding) to the actual stock value. For instance, if your DCF analysis tells you that a company is worth $34 a share, but it is trading at $22 a share on a stock exchange, then the stock is trading at a 36% discount (($34 - $22)/$34) to its intrinsic value. In other words, this stock has a 36% margin of safety. If on the other hand, your DCF stated that the stock was worth $15 and it was trading at $24, there would be no margin of safety. Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett warn against buying stocks with no margin of safety or even small margins of safety since the margin of safety concept is intended to shield the investor from his own errors.

If you watched the video above, you saw that the stock analyst has to make lots of projections as to the growth rate of a company, potential tax rates, and the rates at which operating expenses will grow. And the more things one has to project, the easier it is to get things wrong. Fortunately, one doesn't have to use a DCF analysis in order to determine if a stock provides adequate margin of safety. She can just look at the metrics that I pointed to in the last post: P/E, P/BV, and P/FCF.

P/E
The faster that a company is growing, the higher that its P/E will usually be. As a general rule, the investor should look for companies that are growing fast, but have comparatively low P/Es (under 15x). A comparatively low P/E ratio, along with a growth rate that is equal to or higher than the nominal P/E (the actual number for the P/E), is indicative of a margin of safety.

Here's a quick example because I know that last sentence was a little confusing. Let's say you find a stock with a P/E ratio of 10. This is a great start, but if it the underlying company is growing at 5% a year, there might not be a margin of safety. Conversely, if a stock is trading at 10x earnings, but growing at 14% a year, this is certainly indicative of a margin of safety and it means the stock warrants further investigation!

Price to Book Value 
As I mentioned last post, the book value of a company is the total amount of assets minus the total amount of liabilities. Essentially, it is the surplus, or what really makes a company valuable. When looking for margin of safety using this metric, just as when you are using the P/E, lower numbers are better. (Usually a multiple in between 2x and 4x is considered low.) When a company has a low price to book value, often times its assets - such as land that is being accounted for on the balance sheet at cost - are being woefully undervalued. The trick though, is to find companies with low P/BV and low, but steady growth and a dividend. The stock market treats steady growers very well, especially if they have a dividend. Low P/BV with a dividend usually means a margin of safety because even if you are wrong about the assets being undervalued, the dividend will provide downside cushion, AND, the market will probably not punish the stock for missing earnings estimates since its multiple is already so low.

In the next post, I will talk about the last major valuation metric, which is Price to Free Cash Flow. We'll get a little into the weeds, but it will be worth it.

Investing Tutorial - Part 2 (Stock Valuation)

In the last post, we were discussing the relationship of my analogy to companies, or their stocks as investments. If you haven't read the previous post, this post won't make much sense, so I encourage you to go back and read it. That being said, let's move forward.

What makes a great company great? Think about a company like Nike. It has great (cool and stylish) products, a large and loyal customer base, and great brand recognition. The same goes for Apple. And those  aforementioned qualities are the reasons these companies' stock prices have soared over the last two decades. Great products and a loyal customer base usually translate into consistently high revenues, which also, for these companies, equals higher earnings.

Investment analysts determine whether or not a company is "expensive" by determining what multiple of earnings or some other metric of profitability/worth that the stock is trading at. For instance, if a company has $2.00 per share of earnings and its stock price is $20, its "price to earnings ratio" or P/E multiple, is 10. Similarly, if a company has the same $2.00 per share worth of earnings, but has a stock price of $100, that stock's P/E multiple is 50. An average P/E is about 20 -25 and the P/E ratio will vary depending on the industry that the company is in. Fast growing technology companies usually have nosebleed P/E ratios and more boring companies like car companies or waste removal companies trade at lower multiples. This is because investors are willing to pay more for companies that are growing really fast.

Facebook is an example of a fast growing company that trades at a high multiple, and is a cautionary tale about investing in high multiple stocks. Unless you live under a rock, you've probably heard that Facebook recently had an IPO (initial public offering). And when it came public, its P/E multiple was a whopping 155!! (This was calculated by dividing its initial price at the time of the IPO of $45 by its earnings of $.29.) Since then, the stock has lost approximately 60% of its value and it still trades at a multiple of 65! And remember that I said a normal P/E is in the 20 - 25 range.

Here we return to Graham's admonition regarding thorough research and ensuring to the best of one's ability that an investment will not lose money. Although it is impossible to determine whether an investment will lose money (unless of course you're a fortune teller, in which case, please call me), there are ways to mitigate risk certainly. It has been empirically proven that stocks with high multiples get treated more harshly by Wall Street (in terms of high volume selling that drives down the price) when they fail to meet expectations than below average multiple stocks. This is because high expectations are already taken into account by the price. So if high multiple stocks seem to be risky, then it follows that low multiple stocks should be less risky.

For the most part, that assertion is true and a whole body of investing has evolved around that very premise. The type of investing that focuses on stocks with low multiples of price to earnings, or price to free cash flow, or price to book value is called value investing.

Value investing, in keeping with Benjamin Graham's assertion about protecting principal, proposes that the best way to do so is to buy stocks with what's called a margin of safety. In the next post, I'll discuss this concept in greater depth and talk about how to calculate it.

Investing Tutorial - Part 1 (Stock Valuation)

Benjamin Graham - the mentor of Warren Buffett, one of the world's richest men and greatest investors - wrote in his seminal treatise on investing, that the difference between an investment and speculation is that an investment is something that after thorough research provides safety of principal and an adequate return. Anything else, Graham warned, is speculation.
[CD] Security Analysis By Graham, Benjamin (Google Affiliate Ad)

In the Investing Tutorial Series that I am starting today, I will be discussing basic investment tenets that will hopefully help my readership take their financial destinies into their own hands. Today's topic is stock valuation. And crucial to the topic of stock valuation are the two primary principles behind why anyone would invest in the first place: 1) to combat the corrosive effects of inflation; 2) to take advantage of the benefits of compound interest. Let's tackle these two concepts briefly before getting a little into the weeds with stock valuation.

When governments print money to satisfy their own financial obligations, or banks make it easy for people to borrow money, the amount of money in circulation increases. When the amount of money/currency in circulation in a particular economy increases, the value of that currently goes down. When the value of currency goes down, prices go up to make up for the fact that the value of goods and services  being provided has remained relatively stable. Humans invest in the stock and debt markets in search of investments that will exceed the rate of return on "risk-free" assets (assets on which you will not lose money) like U.S. Treasury bonds.  By finding these investments - assuming that they go up in value - investors can assure themselves that their purchasing power will at least keep up with inflation, thereby enabling them to maintain their present standard of living in old age.

With regard to the second principle behind why we invest, Albert Einstein once said, "Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. Those who understand it, earn it...those who don't, pay it." Compound interest, for the uninitiated, is the interest that accrues on principal (the initial amount invested) and the interest  that had previously accrued. The chart below demonstrates the power of compound investing:

 
Here, $1000 and nothing more is invested over the course of 10 years and the various lines demonstrate what happens at different interest rates. It's not important now, but if you want to know how to calculate compound interest, here's a formula:  F.A. = P * (1 + I.R.)^N, where F.A. is the final amount including principal, P is the principal amount, I.R. is the interest rate used for compounding in decimal format, and N is the number of years the principal has been invested.

So, how does all of this relate to stock valuation? Well, remember how Graham said that an investment involves safety of principal. Another way of saying keep your principal safe is "don't lose money"! Graham isn't telling us not to lose money just because losing money is no fun. He's telling us this because when we don't preserve our principal, it is harder to take advantage of compounding interest and thereby combat inflation. Here's an example.

Suppose you have $10,000 to invest and your husband's friend comes along and gives you a "hot" stock tip. You oblige and plunk $10,000 of your hard earned money into this stock as an "investment", but because you didn't do as Graham advised in failing to research this stock, you lose 50% of your money and this investment is now worth $5,000. In order to just get even, you have to earn a 100% return. Let's say you lost 25% instead and your investment was now worth $7,500 instead of $10,000. You would have to earn a 33% return in order to get back to even.

The moral of the story is that capital preservation is key in any investment undertaking. After realizing that not losing money is key, the next step in analyzing an investment is determining its value or how expensive it is. Determination of an investment's value determines whether or not you will be preserving your capital, and on your way to capital appreciation, as opposed to placing your capital at risk of permanent loss. By how expensive an investment is, I don't mean how high its price is. A stock can be priced at $1,000 and be inexpensive and a stock can also be $10 and be super expensive. Let me explain.

If I offered you a new Ferrari for $25,000, $25,000 might be a high price, but you would recognize that given how amazing of a car a Ferrari is, its value is way higher. Similarly, if I offered you a pen for $100, although $100 might be a nominal amount to you, you would say that the pen is overpriced and you'd be right. How does this analogy relate to stocks and the underlying companies? Join me in the next post as we explore how a company's valuation determines whether you should invest.

Money Memes, Myths, and Misunderstandings

The brain is an extremely powerful apparatus. It is capable of bringing things into existence. Every great invention that has ever come to fruition has come about as a result of the human brain. Mankind has for centuries turned thought into reality. The brain perceives what could be and then transmutes that thought into a tangible reality.

Since the brain is so powerful and can turn its thoughts into reality, it should come as no surprise that the way  we perceive things heavily influences our reality. And unfortunately, there are a lot of societal forces which are largely negative, which influence our views on money.

These views come in the form of memes, myths, and basic misunderstandings. And sometimes all of these "m"'s overlap. A meme is defined as an element of culture that is passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation. A myth, as you well know, is a lie that is commonly believed. And a misunderstanding is well, a misunderstanding.

A lot of times, these memes, myths, and misunderstandings come to shape our views about money and thereby leave us impoverished, both literally and figuratively. I'll go through a few to show you what I mean.

"MONEY DOESN'T GROW ON TREES."

Well the picture above proves that wrong. 'Nuff said. :-) Now of course money doesn't grow on trees.
But the saying is meant to tell people that money is scarce and that having it or receiving it is difficult. All of the self help gurus that I've read have always preached that what one focuses on expands in his reality. (Here we return to the concept that the brain is a powerful machine.) And what does the meme/misunderstanding that money is scarce generate? You guessed it - money scarcity. Some skeptics might say that the saying is intended to let people know that they have to "work hard" for money, but what is that really saying? That money doesn't come easily. Guess what though? Money does come easily though, if you have enough of it.

Think about a billionaire. The interest that she earns on that billion dollars every year is more than a whole lot of people can ever dream about having in their lives. And these billionaires believe that money comes easily and for them it does. I know there are some still who might say that this doesn't work if you only have a little bit of money and I hear you. But as humans, we have to aspire and if you are feeling negative about a situation, it will likely remain negative - just like how if a person begins thinking angry thoughts, his body will produce the same hormones as if he actually was angry. By now, I hope you get the picture. Perception creates reality, so choose your 'perceptions' carefully.

"MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL."

Now this statement also falls into the meme and misunderstanding category, but it's mostly a misunderstanding, thankfully. Even though America is the great melting pot and was founded on principles of freedom of religion, its predominant religion is Christianity. And in the Bible, in 1Timothy Chapter 6 verse 10,   it says "For the love of money is the root of all evil."

Here Jesus is talking about how people can make money an idol and God doesn't like idols. But it's not that money itself is evil. It's just a tool and it can be used in a positive fashion to build up God's kingdom. Think about that the next time someone spews such silliness.

As I alluded to earlier, our thoughts control our actions and if you think that money is evil, you will subconsciously find a way to rid yourself of it. I mean, who wants something evil in their lives. A lot of times, people will say that they want to be wealthy, but have an underlying belief such as money is evil, that is incongruent  with their stated desire. If you want anything in life, you can have it. You just have to be congruent about it.

"THE ECONOMY IS TOO TOUGH RIGHT NOW FOR ME TO GET AHEAD."

That statement in quotes above is a complete and utter myth!

In 2006, I read something that didn't come back to me until about a month ago. The article I was reading said that "more millionaires were created during the Great Depression than at any other time in American history."  That statement is so powerful that I think it bears repeating. "More millionaires were created during the Great Depression than at any other time in American history."

Today's economic environment is harsh and I personally do think we're in a depression and not a recession. But that doesn't mean you can't succeed financially. When I began to think on the high number of millionaires created during the Great Depression, I think about how these millionaires must have seen tremendous opportunity and this inspires me. A few weeks back, I was looking for a job and was not making any headway whatsoever, no matter how many resumes I sent out. And then I realized that I could make money off of my blog, and that I should start my own financial coaching site. Fortunately, I'm currently in the process of filing the LLC papers and building a website and client base. I use myself as an example not to brag, especially since I'm just getting started. But I use myself to show that every crisis presents an opportunity.
In this economic climate, people need financial coaching more than ever, and I've never really liked working for anyone else. So why not start my own financial caching business? Voila!

The moral of the story is that it is possible to live your ideal life. However, you must be clear on what you want and you must rid yourself of any limit beliefs regarding money. Your limiting beliefs will most certainly keep your wallet thin and make you miserable. Feel free to share any limiting beliefs that you've found within yourself that you're getting rid of.  

Sexual Energy Transmutation and Wealth

It was about six years ago to the date that I came across the famous book by Napoleon Hill called "Think and Grow Rich". When I first picked it up, I thought to myself, "Great, now I'll know all I need to know about how to get rich." Ha! Boy, did I have a lot to learn. I don't say that to put the book down as it is a great book and is widely regarded as such. But I've realized that it's one thing to just read about the precepts in a book, and it's another to actually put them to work on a daily basis in your life.

One of the things that Napoleon Hill talks about in the book, and that I've struggled with implementing in my life, is the "transmutation of sexual energy". Although I'm not sure (partly because Hill doesn't explicitly say what sexual energy is), I perceive this "sexual energy" that Hill is referring to as semen. So essentially Hill is saying transform your lust, and therefore your semen, into wealth through a redirection of your thoughts. Instead of aimlessly spewing (pun intended) your semen through masturbation and looking at porn, direct that  sexual energy (which is a very potent force) into a wealth generating pursuit.

As I said earlier, I've always had a problem with the implementation of this part of Hill's recipe for wealth. I have an extremely high sex drive, and ever since I was 11 years old, I've been looking at porn. The longest I've ever gone with looking at it is 7 months and that was last year. And the longest I've gone without masturbation has been a month. But now, I'm embarking on a new journey to give up those two vices and direct my energy toward more constructive activities. Today is day 25 of abstinence from pornography and day 2 of my journey of abstinence from masturbation. I'm not necessarily sure that doing these two things will  result in any financial change in my life, but for the longest time, a little voice in my head has been telling me to  do them. So since I have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, I'm gonna try and see where I end up a year from now.

Feel free to join me on my journey and let me know what your experience is.