Why Confidence Investing is Superior

• The emergence of mutual funds
  Mutual funds typically represent a wide collection of stocks and/or bonds that seek to out-perform the “market,” particular industries or meet investing objectives. The underlying power of funds is based upon diversification—meaning that if one stock performs poorly, there are dozens or even hundreds of other assets in the fund that can possibly buoy performance and moderate the loss of the entire fund. Funds can also provide access to fractional shares—enabling even high priced stocks and bonds to be purchased.
• What’s wrong with mutual funds?
  The downside to funds is that they can be expensive—costing you anywhere between 0.25% and 5.0% of your entire investment per year. And, of course, funds moderate gains, too. The gains of a well-performing stock will quickly be moderated by under-performing assets in the fund. Furthermore, many funds are restricted to investing in public assets—overlooking many outstanding investment opportunities. And, of course, orders to purchase or sell funds are only executed once per day and you cannot control the tax treatment of all profits or losses.
• So why are mutual funds so popular?
  Funds are popular because they are money machines for the financial institutions (not necessarily the investor) that create, manage, brand and sell them. Funds are also “easy” for investment advisors to sell avoiding the hard work necessary to identify, vet and monitor a hand-selected group of investments.
• Confidence Investing
  Our goal as a long term investor is to select a limited number of opportunities with healthy balance sheets, sustainable business models and are likely to experience predictable earnings growth for many years. We then actively monitor these investments with a goal of delivering average returns five percentage points above the rate of inflation.

By withdrawing retirement funds and using this approach, you can retire sooner and with the same or a more comfortable lifestyle.