Enrich Your Future 20: Passive Investing Is the Key to Prudent Wealth Management

In this episode of Enrich Your Future, Andrew and Larry Swedroe discuss Larry’s new book, Enrich Your Future: The Keys to Successful Investing. In this series, they discuss Chapter 20: A Higher Intelligence.LEARNING: Choose passive investing over active investing.&nbsp;“Passive investing involves systematic, transparent, and replicable strategies without individual stock selection or market timing. It’s the more ethical way to go.”Larry Swedroe&nbsp;In this episode of Enrich Your Future, Andrew and Larry Swedroe discuss Larry’s new book, Enrich Your Future: The Keys to Successful Investing. The book is a collection of stories that Larry has developed over 30 years as the head of financial and economic research at Buckingham Wealth Partners to help investors. You can learn more about Larry’s Worst Investment Ever story on Ep645: Beware of Idiosyncratic Risks.Larry deeply understands the world of academic research and investing, especially risk. Today, Andrew and Larry discuss Chapter 20: A Higher Intelligence.Chapter 20: A Higher IntelligenceIn this chapter, Larry discusses prudent investing.The Uniform Prudent Investor ActThe Uniform Prudent Investor Act, a cornerstone of prudent investment management, offers two key benefits.Firstly, it underscores the importance of broad diversification in risk management, empowering trustees and investors to make informed decisions.Secondly, it promotes cost control as a vital aspect of prudent investing, providing a clear roadmap for those who may lack the necessary knowledge, skill, time, or interest to manage a portfolio effectively.Ethical malfeasance and misfeasance in investingIn this chapter, Larry sheds light on Michael G. Sher’s insights. Sher extensively discusses ethical malfeasance and misfeasance. He says ethical malfeasance occurs when an investment manager does something deliberately or conceals it (e.g., the manager knows that he’s too drunk to drive but drives anyway).For example, consider the manager who invests intentionally at a higher level of risk than the client chose without informing them and then generates a subsequently higher return. The manager attributes the alpha or the excess return to his superior skill instead of the reality that he was taking more risk, so it was just more exposure to beta, not alpha.On the other hand, ethical misfeasance occurs when an investment manager does something by accident (e.g., the manager really believes that he’s sober enough to drive). Thus, the manager doesn’t know what he’s doing and shouldn’t be managing money.Avoid active investingLarry highly discourages active investing because the evidence shows that active managers who tend to outperform on average outperform by a little bit, and the ones that underperform tend to underperform by a lot.Either they don’t have the skill, and they have higher expenses, and the ones who have enough skills to beat the market, most of that skill is offset by their higher costs. So it’s still really tough to generate alpha.Passive investing is the ethical way to goAccording to Sher, managing money in an efficient market without investing passively is investment malfeasance. He also notes that not knowing that such a market is efficient is investment misfeasance because you should know it. It’s in the law books. Sher concludes that passive investing is a systematic, transparent, and replicable strategy that is more ethical.Further readingW. Scott Simon, The Prudent Investor Act (Namborn Publishing, 2002)Did you miss out on the previous chapters? Check them out:Part I: How Markets Work: How Security Prices are Determined and Why It’s So Difficult to OutperformEnrich Your Future 01: The Determinants of the Risk and Return of Stocks and BondsEnrich Your Future 02: How Markets Set PricesEnrich Your Future 03: Persistence of Performance: Athletes Versus Investment ManagersEnrich Your Future 04: Why Is Persistent Outperformance So Hard to Find?Enrich Your Future 05: Great Companies Do Not Make High-Return InvestmentsEnrich Your Future 06: Market Efficiency and the Case of Pete RoseEnrich Your Future 07: The Value of Security AnalysisEnrich Your Future 08: High Economic Growth Doesn’t Always Mean High Stock Market ReturnEnrich Your Future 09: The Fed Model and the Money IllusionPart II: Strategic Portfolio DecisionsEnrich Your Future 10: You Won’t Beat the Market Even the Best Funds Don’tEnrich Your Future 11: Long-Term Outperformance Is Not Always Evidence of SkillEnrich Your Future 12: When Confronted With a Loser’s Game Do Not PlayEnrich Your Future 13: Past Performance Is Not a Predictor of Future PerformanceEnrich Your Future 14: Stocks Are Risky No Matter How Long the HorizonEnrich Your Future 15: Individual Stocks Are Riskier Than You BelieveEnrich Your Future 16: The Estimated Return Is Not InevitableEnrich Your Future 17: Take a Portfolio Approach to Your InvestmentsEnrich Your Future 18: Build a Portfolio That Can Withstand the Black SwansEnrich Your Future 19: The Gold Illusion: Why Investing in Gold May Not Be SafeAbout Larry SwedroeLarry Swedroe was head of financial and economic research at Buckingham Wealth Partners. Since joining the firm in 1996, Larry has spent his time, talent, and energy educating investors on the benefits of evidence-based investing with an enthusiasm few can match.Larry was among the first authors to publish a book that explained the science of investing in layman’s terms, “<a...