My mother is in an awesome situation where she has just sold her house (at a profit!) and now would like financial advice. She lives near Seattle, WA.
A quick Google search does not help. Are there any strict austrian economics financial advising firms near Seattle, WA that you guys are aware of? Or, how would one go about finding professional financial advice from strict austrian economists?
While it really isn’t near Seattle, there is EuroPac.
Yes, EuroPac would be a good place to go. The owner, Peter Schiff, really knows what he is talking about. If you want to know what kind of investments he is into then you should check him out on youtube. He loves gold and foreign stocks. His whole investment strategy is getting out of the US dollar. Later this summer I will be setting up an account with EuroPac and my parents are aswell.
"Financial Safety Rule #1 says: despite many claims to the contrary, no one, not even your favorite economist or investment advisor, can reliably predict future economic events.
There is no single Austrian way to invest your money. For example, currently, an Austrian could arrive to two different conclusions. Either, as Peter Schiff does, that we are approaching hyperinflation and it best to invest in gold, silver, or, as Mish does, that we will continue to have deflation and thus one should stay in USDs or other deflationary paper currencies.
My personal advice would be to buy high dividend Master Limited Partnerships which deal with oil, natural gas, etc. Your mother will thus have a high return on her money, much more than she could at the bank, and she will be also somewhat hedged against any possible inflation as the value of her stocks and her dividends are linked to a commodity which would increase in price along with inflation.
I appreciate any advice, thank you all. She’s mainly not concerned with investing in stocks and such, and specifically asked me to find her a firm that is educated in and advises based on strict (rothbardian) austrian economic theory.
Does Euro Pac give financial advice or just investment advice? I emailed them already and have not heard back. She wants to know things like should she rent or buy again; where best to buy physical gold; to move out of state or not; and why.
Do these kind of firms even exist? Firms that give basic financial advice and answers to questions based on a strict understanding of rothbardian economic theory?
If you have one or two good questions, could try calling Peter Schiff’s radio show on Wednesday nights.
I think the way the industry is structured, advise comes if they get your business. People don’t want to advise folks who invest with someone else, because then the investment advise becomes public domain, and it is hard to monetize it.
Isn’t there a degree for financial advising?? I thought that Financial Adivisors went to school for their degree, and then set about advising people. It seems like there would be firms of such people. So some of them must have come from schools that teach in the austrian tradition, and so then some firms must specialize in advising based on austrian theory… Or maybe I’m lost. I’m definitely lost, that’s why I wrote this topic. I can’t find anything like it through a Google search or the phone book.
Hi Hashem - most ‘investment professionals’ lose to the market averages. The only real exception are value investors, although I think for sure combining the insights of Austrian business cycle theory and value investing will help you do better than just value investing alone.
Peter Schiff is right on the money in his advice, but you really want to be well informed yourself even if you invest with one of his brokers. The reason is simple: If you can find the stocks that are values among the ones his brokers recommend, you’ll do better than just blindly buying whatever they recommend.
Don’t trust what most people will tell you about investing, most of the experts are wrong - Peter Schiff is an exception, and there are others (you can learn a lot from the writings of value investors even though most of them don’t believe inAustrian economics).
My advice: Learn as much as you can about value investing AND Peter Schiff’s ideas and make sure that any advisor you deal with has a similar philosophy. I can recommend many more books if you’d like, although Schiff’s Crash Proof or The Little Book of Bull Moves in Bear Markets and anything by Benjamin Graham (The Intelligent Investor, Security Analysis), David Dremen (Contrarian Investment Strategies For The Next Generation), and Joel Greenblatt (The Little Book That Beats The Market, You Can Be A Stock Market Genius) are good books to learn value investing from. The latter three don’t buy into Austrian economics, but you can integrate what Austrian economics teaches with the ideas of value investing and do quite well.
Value investing is the only investing method proven statistically to beat the market, although here most of us would argue that the insights from Austrian economics can also help you beat the market, and by a good margin, in times like these. In today’s markets, investing without either of these sets of tools is like driving half blind.
You can also check out Schiff’s site at www.europac.net, and for proof that value investing works without having to buy any of the above books you can check out the collection of studies in this PDF from Tweedy Browne Company LLC, What Has Worked In Investing
Also, integrating the two and teaching them is what I want to eventually do with my site linked below. Sorry for the direct plug.