Experts

While I am the Chief Investment Strategist for The Oxford Club and Liberty Through Wealth today, I retired from Wall Street at the ripe old age of 43.

After 16 years as an investment advisor, research analyst and portfolio manager, I had gone from a net worth of approximately zero to financial independence.

That meant I was free to do whatever I wanted, wherever I wanted, with whomever I wanted.

It’s called total financial freedom. And I can tell you from experience, it’s a great feeling.

Since retiring from the securities industry, I’ve been busy living what I call “the second half of my life.”

I write about the financial markets for The Oxford Club, the world’s largest financial fellowship with more than 110,000 Members, and Liberty Through Wealth (formerly Investment U), a free daily e-letter with close to 300,000 subscribers.

I’m also in charge of three fast-paced trading services: The Momentum Alert, The Insider Alert and The True Value Alert.

And I’ve authored four national bestsellers: The Gone Fishin’ Portfolio, The Secret of Shelter Island, Beyond Wealth, and An Embarrassment of Riches.

Working as a writer instead of as a licensed investment advisor suits me well. I can give advice freely, and no one who heeds it has to wonder whether my real motive is to earn fees or commissions or “capture their assets.”

I can write what I want about the market – and the world – without a compliance officer scrutinizing my words. And readers don’t have to worry about the objectivity of my analysis.

I have no business relationships with the companies I cover, no investment banking colleagues seeking customers for new bond issues and secondary offerings, no reason to tell anything but the plain truth as I see it.

Many of these truths I’ve learned the hard way. You can save yourself a lot of trouble – not to mention a boatload of money – by learning from my personal experience.

(I made the dumb mistakes early in my career, so you don’t have to.)

In my Liberty Through Wealth columns, you’ll learn how to successfully manage your money yourself, using simple yet highly sophisticated strategies to increase your returns, reduce your risk, avoid Wall Street’s mountain of fees and keep the taxman at bay.

No one cares more about your money than you do. You should manage it yourself.

With Liberty Through Wealth, you can – and enjoy the total financial freedom that comes with it.

Articles by Alex

• The Last Human Freedom May 25, 2020-
  Today, Alex shares his thoughts on “the last human freedom.” Our freedom to choose our own attitude is an important part of achieving true wealth.
• How Investors Rationalize Their Fears… and Lose Money May 21, 2020-
  The recent coronavirus crash led many investors to panic and pull money out of the market, but this is never a good idea. Market timing simply does not work.
• Do Bears Lack Imagination, Knowledge… or Both? May 18, 2020-
  Stock market bears insist that the recent rally makes no sense. Most lack imagination or don’t understand how markets work - or both.
• The Secret to Higher Stock Market Returns May 15, 2020-
  It can be hard to know when exactly to buy into a stock, but there’s a telltale sign - and reliable investment strategy - that rarely fails.
• The Perfect Contrarian Indicator Pays Off… Yet Again May 11, 2020-
  This economist’s flawed predictions serve as one of our favorite contrarian indicators. And they’re paying off yet again amid the coronavirus crisis.
• Why Some Investors Succeed… But Most Don’t May 8, 2020-
  Why do so many investors fail? What are successful investors doing differently? Well, for starters, they find a proven investment strategy and stick to it.
• “Experts” Hate the Stock Market… Here’s Why May 4, 2020-
  Markets are efficient - everything that can be known is immediately reflected in share prices. So why do "experts" hate the market so much?
• What “the Market” Understands That Health Experts Don’t April 30, 2020-
  First quarter GDP took a hit, but the market is already looking ahead to the third and fourth quarters. Here’s what investors understand that the experts don’t.
• How Markets Will Save Us From COVID-19 April 24, 2020-
  Many people don’t understand how the stock market works. But the free market system is what’s going to save us from the coronavirus.
• The Market Tells Investors, “Be More Optimistic” April 23, 2020-
  The market is a leading indicator that reflects the knowledge of millions of investors. Right now, it’s telling investors that things are looking up.

More articles by Alex >>

Based in Europe, Nicholas is a widely recognized expert on exchange-traded funds and an accomplished investment expert. Nicholas has been a regular commentator on CNN International and Fox Business Network. He has also been cited in The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Fox Business News, CBS MarketWatch, Yahoo Finance and MSN Money Central.

Here’s a little more about the journey that led him to you…

Growing up in Pittsburgh, Nicholas earned spending money by selling flavored ice cubes at Little League baseball games, delivering the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at 5:00 a.m. and shoveling snow during the harsh Pennsylvania winters.

For a kid from the Rust Belt who was a big Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers fan, he also lived a double life. He spent his summers studying in West Germany (before unification), France, Italy and communist Hungary on scholarships he diligently applied for while in high school.

I was lucky. My parents made me aware of opportunities other kids couldn’t even dream about. Every summer, I had the chance to dip into a completely different language, reality and culture. During the bad old days of the Cold War, not a lot of kids from the United States were spending their summers in Europe, let alone behind the Iron Curtain. It was as if I got to visit another planet each summer. And then I spent the school year back on planet earth.

Luckily, this was the kind of unusual background that top colleges were looking for.

Nicholas earned a B.A. in both economics and history and an M.A. in history in less than four years from Stanford University.

There, he discovered the work of free market economist Friedrich Hayek and wrote two theses on his work.

That work put him on track to win a Fulbright scholarship to the Karl Marx University of Economics in Budapest, making him one of the first Fulbright scholars to study behind the Iron Curtain.

Assuming his academic interests in the Soviet Union and centrally planned economies was a professional dead-end, he turned down an economics Ph.D scholarship to Oxford University and went on to attend Harvard Law School instead.

Truth be told, he wasn’t a big fan of the law. Compared with the exciting world of clashing economic ideals, law seemed pedestrian and boring. Harvard proved better fit for his classmates, including future president Barack Obama and good friend, now Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch.

As luck would have it, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down before he graduated. Suddenly, Eastern Europe and Russia were open for business.

After Harvard, he joined the world’s largest law firm, which had just opened offices in Eastern Europe. His mission – as he put it then – was to “help dismantle centrally planned economies.”

For nearly four years, he worked on the privatizations of some of the leading banks, oil companies and telecom companies in the region, listing them on regional stock exchanges. It’s this work that first exposed him to the fascinating world of investing.

Nicholas then set out to learn all he could about finance and embarked on a successful and varied business career, including launching several investment funds in Europe, founding a London-based roundtable of leading investment experts like Steve Forbes and Nassim Taleb, and writing for Eagle Publishing’s The Global Guru for 12 years alongside four other investment advisory newsletters.

In January 2018, Nicholas became The Oxford Club’s first and only ETF strategist, writing for the daily Liberty Through Wealth e-letter (formerly Investment U) and our flagship newsletter, The Oxford Communiqué. He is also the Editor of the new ETF trading service, Oxford Wealth Accelerator.

Outside of work, Nicholas focuses on managing his personal investments and his growing family.

Articles by Nicholas

• You Need to See a Psychiatrist May 26, 2020-
  Many top traders seek the help of coaches and psychiatrists, but every investor should evaluate their psychology and how it affects wealth creation.
• Secrets of Successful Swing Trading May 22, 2020-
  Swing trading is one of the best ways to make money over a short period. But why is it so successful? There are a variety of factors.
• The World’s Most Successful Investor Is a Swing Trader May 20, 2020-
  Swing trading has made many a hedge fund manager a fortune - including the world’s most successful investor. But it can work for small investors too.
• How Swing Trading Lets You Bet on a Market Bottom May 19, 2020-
  Swing trading has allowed hedge fund managers like Paul Tudor Jones II to become billionaires. Here’s how you can you apply this strategy to your portfolio.
• How Quant Trading Took Over Wall Street May 14, 2020-
  Over the past 10 years, a battle has been raging on Wall Street. But not between stock pickers... between humans and computers - quant trading systems.
• The Greatest Moneymaking Machine in Wall Street History May 12, 2020-
  The greatest investor in history isn’t who you would expect. And what led to his market-beating success wasn’t fundamentals - it was quantitative investing.
• The Tyranny of the Negative Headline May 7, 2020-
  There is no shortage of scary headlines in the news. What does the onslaught of media negativity mean for wealth builders?
• How to Think About Risk May 5, 2020-
  Financial advisors and hedge fund managers have many different tools to calculate risk. But which makes the most sense for your personal portfolio?
• Welcome to the New World of Quant Investing May 1, 2020-
  The explosion of computing power in recent years has made quant investing accessible to everyday investors. Now you don’t need to beat ‘em... you can join ’em.
• Why Psychology Is the No. 1 Secret to Your Investment Success April 27, 2020-
  Subscribing to investment advice is helpful only if you actually follow it. Here’s why psychology is one of the most critical components for successful investing.

More articles by Nicholas >>

Mark Morgan Ford is a lifelong practitioner of writing, teaching, entrepreneurship, martial arts and philanthropy.

He has been writing and publishing since 1962 when, at age 12, he sold an underground booklet titled Excuses for the Amateur to his fifth-grade peers. Since then, he has written more than two dozen books on business, entrepreneurship and wealth building (several of which were New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers), as well as half a dozen books on rhetoric and three books of poetry. He has also written and produced four feature-length movies.

From 2000 to 2010, he posted more than 3,000 essays on his Early to Rise blog, which, at one time, had a circulation of nearly a million readers. From 2010 to 2015, he retired from all but one of his business concerns and created an educational curriculum on wealth building. This curriculum – which consists of thousands of pages of advice and instruction – lives in the Wealth Sciences Academy, an organization whose goal is to encourage industry, entrepreneurship and prudent financial management for the “not yet wealthy.”

As an entrepreneur, he has been involved in dozens of multimillion-dollar businesses, including one whose revenues exceeded $100 million and another that broke the billion-dollar mark. His current business interests include the Agora companies (a large international publishing group), Ford Fine Art (a broker of Latin American and contemporary fine art in Miami, Nicaragua and Delray Beach), AWAI (a company that teaches writing and graphic arts), Lion’s Kill (a movie production business) and Palimi (a business consulting company).

As a real estate investor, he has been involved in more than a hundred projects and developments, from single-family homes to apartment buildings, office buildings and resort communities. Travel & Leisure magazine recently voted the hotel facility in one of these resort communities – Rancho Santana on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua – “one of the 100 best in the world.”

A student of martial arts since 1998, Ford has won three Naga championships. He received his black belt from Marcel Ferreira in 2015.

His charitable activities include FunLimon, a community development facility across the street from Rancho Santana that provides a range of services, including an athletic program, a microlending program, a trade school and a literacy school.

He has attempted to retire four times in his career, never successfully. His current goal is to give away 90% of his wealth in the next decade.

Articles by Mark

• How to Master Your Emotions and Make Good Investment Decisions May 13, 2020-
  Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Is either tendency hindering your ability to achieve career success and attain a rich life? If so, here’s what to do.
• Four Ways to Be Rich – Rate Yourself Now May 6, 2020-
  Being "rich" usually refers to financial wealth, but there are other ways you can be rich that will also improve your life.
• These Activities Will Improve Your Life April 28, 2020-
  If you’ve found yourself with a lot more free time on your hands lately, here are a few tips to make sure you are using it wisely to create a rich life.
• Smelling the Roses April 15, 2020-
  You need money - lots of money - to own the symbols of wealth. But to get the feeling of wealth and lead a rich life, you don’t need to spend much at all...
• Take These Four Vital Steps When Disaster Strikes April 8, 2020-
  Life dishes out disasters big and small all the time. How we react to them can have a huge impact on how successful we are on our path to true wealth.
• How to Survive and Profit From Black Swan Events March 11, 2020-
  As a wealth builder, you have a choice. Try to predict the future (impossible) or learn how to protect yourself and even profit from adverse events.
• Make 3 People Smile Today February 5, 2020-
  Charisma is an important skill for achieving success and a rich life. It doesn’t come naturally to everyone, but luckily there’s a simple way to be charming.
• So You’re Old… That Doesn’t Mean You’re Done January 22, 2020-
  Hitting 60 can be a tough milestone, especially if you’re not happy with your finances. Mark Ford explains what to do to get healthy and create wealth.
• How to Be an Information User, Not an Information Junkie January 15, 2020-
  Information junkies get a rush from buying into the newest books and training courses. But how they actually use the information is the key to a rich life.
• The “Early to Rise” Virtue January 8, 2020-
  Getting up (and getting to work) earlier not only makes you look more industrious than your colleagues but can actually make you more productive.

More articles by Mark >>

Liberty Through Wealth Advisory Panelist Mark Skousen relates to Benjamin Franklin in more ways than one.

Like Franklin, Mark has a rags-to-riches story. He grew up in Portland, Oregon, in a family of 10 children. And after finishing school, he became a successful entrepreneur and publisher.

Like Franklin, Mark has a doctorate (in economics and monetary history), which he earned from George Washington University. In addition to having taught economics and finance at Columbia Business School, Mark is currently the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Professor at Chapman University in California.

Franklin published the Pennsylvania Gazette and Poor Richard’s Almanac. Since 1980, Mark has been the editor-in-chief of the award-winning investment newsletter Forecasts & Strategies.

Franklin was a diplomat and secret negotiator with the French and other allies. Mark was an economic analyst for the CIA in the early ’70s.

Like Franklin, Mark is a successful author and publisher of books, including The Maxims of Wall Street and Investing in One Lesson. In 2006, upon the 300th anniversary of Franklin’s birth, he and his wife completed Franklin’s famously unfinished autobiography under the title, The Compleated Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Volume Two: 1757-1790).

Like Franklin, Mark is a true believer in reason, self-determination, hard work and liberty. He is the founder of FreedomFest, an annual gathering in Las Vegas of the freedom movement from around the world.

And finally, like Franklin, Mark is married with five children and five grandchildren. He’s also lived abroad in eight countries and visited more than 77.

With all these uncanny comparisons, it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that not only does Mark relate to our revered founding father but he is, in fact, an eighth-generation direct descendant of Franklin himself.

From 2005 to 2007, Mark was the Chairman of Investment U, the predecessor of Liberty Through Wealth. It’s given that lineage that he continues to write for it today as a monthly contributor.

Articles by Mark

• Flight to Safety: What Works, What Doesn’t March 25, 2020-
  In a market crash like the one we’ve been experiencing, there are certain flights to safety that wealth builders can take. Here’s what’s working right now.
• A Democratic Sweep in November Could Be the End of the Bull Market February 20, 2020-
  Democratic presidential candidates have been attacking Wall Street left and right. If a Democrat wins, it will mean trouble for wealth builders.
• Why the Hot Hand of Investing Never Lasts January 29, 2020-
  Why can’t the market’s top hedge fund managers stay on top for long? There are a few reasons, and they’re important to know if you want to grow your wealth.
• 2020 Vision: What Could Go Wrong? December 30, 2019-
  The 2020 election could have major implications for our economy and the stock market. Here’s what you can do to protect yourself and grow your wealth.
• Paul Volcker’s Gift That Keeps On Giving December 18, 2019-
  If there is one person we should thank for the lengthy bull market we’ve been enjoying, it’s Paul Volcker. Today, we examine his legacy of financial economics.
• Invest in Stocks or Start a Business? Talk to Chuck! October 23, 2019-
  What’s the secret of wealth, starting your own business or investing in stocks? Contributor Mark Skousen sat down with Charles Schwab himself to find out.
• Warren Buffett’s Success Is Due to Skill, Talent and Experience September 25, 2019-
  Although some people believe Warren Buffett’s luck may be running out, others feel that his investment strategies will stand the test of time.
• Gold Finally Makes a Comeback… For Good? August 28, 2019-
  It’s been a long time since gold has seen the spotlight. Is it finally here to stay? Maybe not, but investors can access future profits with a gold ETF.
• Kevin O’Leary on the “Cold Hard Truth” About Money and Investing July 24, 2019-
  At this year’s FreedomFest, Kevin O’Leary shared his “cold hard truth.” Mark Skousen discusses which of O’Leary’s ideas resonate for building wealth.
• Is the No. 1 Goal to Maximize the Stock Price? June 27, 2019-
  Some business leaders feel it should be all about making money for the shareholders, while others seek a higher purpose. Which approach is best?

More articles by Mark >>