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 “Blue Zone” of Financial Well-Being September 28, 2020-
  There are several keys to happiness, and research shows that financial health can not only help you lead a rich life but also improve your health and relationships.
• The “Blue Zones” of Wealth and Happiness September 25, 2020-
  According to a world-renowned researcher and bestselling author, the three things that lead to happiness - and true wealth - are pleasure, purpose and pride.
• Are Corporate Insiders Shouting “Buy”? September 21, 2020-
  Investors can get themselves in a panic if they don’t understand what insider buying signals are really saying. Alex Green explains how to interpret them.
• How to Eat Better, Live Longer… and Get Richer September 18, 2020-
  Maintaining your investment portfolio is a lot like maintaining your health: The key to health and wealth is not the market where you shop, but what you buy.
• Should You Be Using an Account Manager? September 14, 2020-
  If you’re unsure whether your asset allocation is appropriate, you might benefit from the personalized advice of a professional account manager.
• The True Road to Greater National and Personal Wealth September 11, 2020-
  Some politicians have proposed socialist policies, but we need to look at other countries for a dose of reality.
• Something Else to Celebrate on Labor Day September 7, 2020-
  There’s much to celebrate today, including international trade. Here’s why imports and exports are important for investors and a key factor in global wealth.
• The Most Difficult Part of Investing September 4, 2020-
  Wall Street is the only market where the customers won’t buy when the merchandise goes on sale.
• How to Know When to Sell Your Stocks August 31, 2020-
  If you don't have a predetermined sell discipline - and the vast majority of investors don't - you're flying by the seat of your pants.
• The One Thing Great Investors Focus On August 28, 2020-
  You aren’t likely to beat the market by guessing when to be in and when to be out, but it is possible to beat it another way.

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

• Profit From Wall Street’s Second-Favorite Stock October 1, 2020-
  Back in August, Wall Street smart money loved this technology stock. Here’s how we got to profit from it.
• The Other Tech Boom September 29, 2020-
  There’s a tech boom that no one is talking about... and you can get in on it with the click of a mouse.
• Is Apple (Still) the Perfect Stock? September 24, 2020-
  Apple has reached a staggering $2 trillion valuation. But is it still the perfect stock?
• How to Profit From a Bursting Bubble September 22, 2020-
  It takes nerves of steel to profit from a market downturn. Here’s how to do it.
• Moody Mr. Market Gives Swing Traders an Opportunity September 17, 2020-
  When Mr. Market overreacted last week, it gave swing traders the perfect opportunity.
• Lessons From the Other Crash of the 1920s September 15, 2020-
  Most investors know about the 1929 stock market crash. But history has all but forgotten an equally important crash during the roaring ’20s...
• The Biggest Stock Market Bubble in History September 10, 2020-
  What does the Russian financial crisis of 1998 have to do with U.S. stock markets in 2020? More than you think.
• Is This Investment a Value Trap? September 8, 2020-
  Warren Buffett is dipping a toe into the Japanese market. Should you follow his lead?
• Profit During the Quietest Trading Week of the Year September 3, 2020-
  It’s tough to make profits during the quietest trading week of the year. But it’s not impossible.
• The Not-So-Secret Driver Behind the Market Rally September 1, 2020-
  There’s a big trend that’s responsible for the market’s rally. And this trend is your friend...

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 Spend Yourself Poor September 23, 2020-
  There’s a million-dollar reason why you shouldn’t take financial advice from Mike Tyson...
• Retirement: Don’t Make This Common but Very Costly Mistake! September 2, 2020-
  Retirement planning can be complicated, and many retirees make one common mistake. Mark Ford explains how to avoid it and plan for a happy retirement.
• Going From Good to Great August 21, 2020-
  If you want to accomplish great things, you need to understand two things: pride and practice.
• Three Criteria to Rate Your Broker August 12, 2020-
  Mark Ford wants you to change the way you think about your money. So here are three criteria you can use to rate your broker... and make sure you’re getting the best bang for your buck.
• How to Think Like a Billionaire July 29, 2020-
  To reach an enviable level of success, you need to start with your thought process. Here are eight ways to think like a billionaire.
• Why Intuition Beats Rationality in Building Wealth July 22, 2020-
  It takes more than a rational mind to start building wealth and making sound business decisions.
• How Positive Thinking Could Save Your Life July 8, 2020-
  Author Norman Vincent Peale says that unless you have a positive attitude about yourself and your abilities, “you cannot be successful or happy.” But he’s only half right.
• A Three-Step Strategy for Dealing With the Fear of Failure July 1, 2020-
  Potential entrepreneurs hesitate because they are afraid to fail. Mark Ford explains how to overcome that fear and take steps toward wealth accumulation.
• Facts and Fallacies About Building Wealth June 24, 2020-
  Many commonly accepted “facts” about building wealth are actually fallacies. Smart investors should ignore these myths and adopt a variety of strategies.
• You Can Live a Rich Life While Building Wealth June 3, 2020-
  Some people believe they have to save every penny, while others spend everything they earn. But it is possible to live a rich life while building wealth.

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

• Meeting the Father of Modern Portfolio Theory: His No. 1 Investment Now June 17, 2020-
  What could a finance article published in 1952 possibly teach us about modern portfolio management and how to handle a market crash? As it turns out... a lot.
• 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.

More articles by Mark >>