Successful Investing Means Leaving Mutual Funds Behind | Phil Town

Not knowing investing I started with mutual funds. After one year of reading and educating my self I started buying stocks and setting up my portfolio and I learned that my personal stock portfolio made higher profits then my mutual funds, now all my money is in my stock portfolio and I sold out all my mutual funds.

Look okay I agree with what you're saying I have what is called a 457 plan at work I've been trying to get my money out according to them they say I can't take my money out until I retire I'm trying to look into it because I have money there that I want to invest myself I'm having a problem getting that money out because I don't like the way that managing it and I think I can do better so I'm still trying to find out if I can get that money out

Hi Phil, I have 25K of vfiax. Should I sell it and go into stocks, or can I trade it a few times a year to up my roi? THANKS! Dan Williams

No, what is holding me back is that I don't know a THING about investing for myself rather than through a mutual fund. I'm not sure I want to be behind a desk all day at home as a day trader to invest, because it seems to require a LOT of research and constant monitoring. Wouldn't you even have to interview the entire management structure and its employees to see if this is where you want to invest???

Wise guy!

I almost get punch for asking question to the guy who was convincing to invest in mutual fund. lol

I was in my 3rd year of US Army and was starting to learn about stocks and investing, where we had a seminar about how it is good to save money to put in mutual/index fund… from a guy with MBA.. blah blah blah. I was listening carefully and stock market and mutual fund was french to me at that time. And it get to about expense ratio. (I used 2.5% as a figure of speech, and government funds are not that bad, it is like 0.1%, I guess and he didn't really talked that much about that. Just saying like some part will be taken out as a management fee.)

I asked him " According to what you are explaining, Sir, let's say expense ratio is 2.5%/year, is it mean that at 40 years, I will get 0$ and starting from year 41, do I have to pay you back 2.5% every year? Isn't it better to just choose the stock you like for investing?"

He was so offended and pissed, but he was able to cool himself down just in a matter of second. But still looking at me like.. (You stupid lower enlisted little asian who can't even speak english very well, what do you know about stock market?) kinda attitude and tell me it is not how the expense ratio is calculated and if you can do that (stock picking).. good for you. Before that, the officers (doctors and nurses ect.) where talking with him about how they manage their portfolio with the financial advisers and such. So, he point out to those officers and "explain" like getting advice and guide from "experts". Then he asked me how much stock do I have, I said nothing and he walked away.. lol ( I still do not understand about how the expense ratio is calculated, but I am not learning about that as I will not be using mutual funds anyway.)

I did get advice and guide from "experts" (the books and you tube videos and investopia) and after about 13 months later, maybe I am just lucky, I now have 13,000$ worth of stocks with about total 8500$ I put in. And I am still learning from "my experts" that I don't need to pay and there is so much to learn.

I know what's holding people back from investing on their own. Netflix, tv, and video games. LOL ??? everyone's wasting their time

sooooo… True.. I was thinking the service fee that they are already deducting from my portfolio and the dividends, which they are not explaining more on that.

3 mutual fund managers don’t like this

What books or resources do you recommend for someone new to start investing. What should be kept in mind in order to decide if a particular investment is a good deal or not. Thank you!!!

learnng and setting up my plateform to trade also money

While I agree that actively managed mutual funds are a joke, I highly suggest extremely low cost, bare bone ETFs that track the S&P 500. WIth my brokerage account, my expense ratios are at a miniscule .03, .05, and .07%. Also, there are no comissions, which stocks do have. For many brokerage companies, you do have to pay for everytime you buy or sell a stock.

The truth is, if you invest in a group of 5 individual stocks for 30 years, you never know what will happen. One can go out of business, or the other may face interest rate risk. When you invest in the total market, you are letting go of your biases and putting your faith in the US economy, be it large, mid, and or small caps.

The reason I got out of mutual funds was because you need a minimum amount to contribute, which was going to take to long for me. I needed immediate access to the market. Also, you can get in the market mid day if something happens, unlike a mutual fund.

What are your thoughts Phil? Is stock picking better than low cost, commission free ETFs that track the S&P 500?

Thanks Phil great information, this is really an eye opener, bought your first book the other day 🙂

The main thing that is holding me back is I do not know where to start my own investments at or with. I need to know how to start it up

Honestly..i feel like I'm ready to begin investing on my own..but I'm just not quite sure which brokerage account to pick??? So many…

Sir, when should i conclude that i am ready for investing in a particular stock?? How much of research and study does it really require?

Which brokers do you recommend to give sound service and good rates?

I have been enjoying your videos and have a question. You obviously do not favor mutual funds as investments, yet Warren Buffett, often recommends buying index funds as investments. As I understand it, index funds are just mutual funds whose assets are automatically traded by computer using pre-set algorithms, as opposed to having trade decisions made by a fund manager. Do you disagree with Mr. Buffett on investing in index funds?

How are you Phil town =) thank you for your videos, they have already changed my life, to respond to your question, what's stopping me from investing on my own is I do not know how to do it, I'm trying to watch as many of your videos as I can, and read as many books as I can, though I have yet to see a 101 lesson on investing, as simple as, here's the website I use, here's the graphs and charts I use and how to get them, here's how you find out what the stock name of the company you want to buy is, like a monkeys version of how to actually buy stocks, while all your information is really useful, if you have this information I'm looking for on your channel I haven't gotten to the video where I see it yet, thank you for any and all of your time, either way you have made a difference in my life already =)

how much percentage of my savings should I invest Town?

Hi Mr Phil,
Can i ask few questions because i'm so confuse now about stock
1. I'm 25 and i don't have any doubt, in my bank account currently have 20k only,i would like to start learning stock market, but i don't know should i start on those very stable company like Coca-Cola or should i start small amount with individual stock?

2. How can i know the penny stock is good or bad?

3. how to see the company annual report, cash flow and dividend?

Please give me some advice mr Phil Town, thanks you very much

Hello, I have really been enjoying your videos. I am currently a could student and I have lately been reading more and more about investing. The thing that I would say is holding me back right now is that I don't know where to invest. What I mean by that is I’m not sure how to invest money into a company. How do I start an investment portfolio and gain access to the market?

Phil, what investment platform do you recommend? For me that has been the biggest hurdle. Which platform makes the most sense and does not require me to spend a large sum of money to begin using the platform.

Hii Phil I am computer science major and know what technology is capable of, do you think we still have a chance of making big when there are companies spending a ton of money on big data and AI who can beat the best investors out there? Do you think any company other than biggies would survive for 10 years (look at how the world is changing), I really like to learn more on stocks but I am not sure.. been listening to videos for more than 2 years and yet I don't feel confident, it still looks like a gamble.

I know it is easy to say buy when it is low sell when it is high, buy stocks long term, don't lose money, know the value( buying a 10$ bill for 5$), know how the company makes money, how would I know that something is on sale?

There is so much data out there it has become tricky to find out the truth, everybody talks about how you could have made big on bitcoins, I would shoot myself in the foot for missing the boat on tesla! I couldn't figure out Amazon would be doing so well despite being from a IT background.

I feel I am not making anything out of the knowledge I have gained, sometimes I feel I am not as knowledgeable and might risk losing the money with whatever little knowledge I have acquired and yeah I am waiting for the market to crash to buy a hell of stock, would that happen anytime soon? I've been reading a lot about it lately..

Hi Phil, my biggest hurdle of investing is to find the entry point in the market. I read your Rule One book front to back and really want to put it in use.  However, I found that the margin of safety prices that I calculated using Rule One for 99% of stocks that I looked into would only reachable in times like 2008 and 2009 when there was a major financial crisis in the country. on the other hand, the "consider to buy" prices offered by the Morningstar website appear to be more attainable within a year or two. Should I just follow Morningstar's advice, because they have more sophisticated tools? I am afraid that evaluating a company is not really as black and white as Rule One's margin of safety formulas? I would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you.

Lack of cash

Why youtube doesn't have a love button like FB :-D?

Do your reservations against mutual funds apply in the case of Fidelity Contrafund?

Hi Phil,
I read your books rule no.1 and payback time, Tony Robbins' unshakeble backs what you say. Only thing is when i invest say a thousand pounds it costs me £11.95 fees and so much for tax. Straight away you have to make that up. Keep up the good work.

Hi phil, What is your take on Closed end fund Not OPen, WHile i do agree on the mutual fund, do think that CEFS are untapped asset classes, The big diffrents is Opend trade through the fund sponser(more fees), Closed end fund dont have these problems: Trade just like stocks on the open market NYSE. This is key. Trading under Nav(net asset value), Mannage distribution policy(dividends). Fantastic assets to have in your portfolio. Some of best wallstreet investors have used this to build there wealth.Benjamin graham introduce the concept. Warent buffet also traded, Carl icahn. This thasnt make your broker ore sponser rich. I love closed end fund & recommend to Learn ore have a look(research). Solid investment.

Hello Phil, thanks for the video. I was wondering if you could do a video on how you allocate your portfolio from a value investing perspective. Very keen to know as stockpiling appears to be a good strategy but all money into one stock seems a little risky! Thanks

I've read about investing via "the intellect investor" there was a lot of stuff in there and I need to try reading it again. I want to also pick up your book. But the reason I haven't jumped yet is I'm stuck trying to decide on a brokerage service. Who to trust and has the best rates? I really don't know. How would you recommend choosing one?

Really enjoy your videos Phil. The book Dhando investor which you recommended really helped reshape my views on investing. Since reading that book I have taken a course on value investing and am now reading The intelligent Investor. If you have any other resources you would recommend for Value Investing or other advice for a novice investor please share. Best wishes, Lucas.

If you are dumb enough to buy mutual funds in this day and age of easily-available investment knowledge/information, then you deserve all the terrible returns that come with these scam funds

I love your videos Phil they make perfect sense but so many people keep telling me don't do it on my own I'm going to lose money and then I listen to your videos and I feel good and confident and then I go out and talk to friends or family and they say oh don't do that don't do that you're going to lose your money. Two stocks I own, i is Apple and Microsoft. When I was a young girl I had Visions repeatedly of a little device I would hold in my hand that looked like a TV. That was at least 50 some years ago. So I felt as if it was an IPhone. Thats why I bought Apple. Also VFINX and VTSMX. Am I ok, ya think?

What is holding me is not understanding all the nuances yet. Still more reading to be done and more podcast to listen.
I also have parents who lost everything with bad investments.

Whats the best way to invest $5000 into stocks and not have to check it every now and again with the intent of reinvesting that money into rental properties in the future? I am a graduating senior about to begin my career next year.