Tom and his partners believe Americans have been misled about how a portfolio should look. The standard advice is to invest in the public markets, stocks or bonds. One reason that advice is so common, in this short, is that public-market investors are the liquidity for those markets, and that’s how a lot of the financial industry makes its money.
Tom has practiced law for 30 years, much of it representing investors who lost money. Over that time he has seen just about every mistake an investor can make, and every way people can be cheated, from Ponzi schemes to franchises with misleading opportunity descriptions. That history is why he’s cautious about taking the standard public-market advice at face value.
Key points
- The default advice to build a portfolio around public stocks and bonds serves the industry that needs that liquidity and earns fees on it.
- Tom has spent 30 years as a lawyer representing investors who lost money.
- That work includes Ponzi schemes, misleading franchise pitches and just about every other way an investment can go wrong.
- The short is a case for questioning that default mix, not for ignoring risk in private deals.
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