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 best-sellers: 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

• Nine Ways to Get Rich – Plus One Foolproof Way January 18, 2019 -
  According to Ken Fisher, a member of the Forbes 400, there are only 10 ways to get rich, and one is the surest way to long-term wealth.
• Why There’s No Excuse for Economic Inequality January 14, 2019 -
  Most of the “have-nots” in this country will not work, save, invest and compound their money.
• Meet the World’s Worst Economic Forecaster January 11, 2019 -
  There are a few individuals whose views are so blinkered they have become nearly perfect contrarian indicators.
• The Biggest Plus for Investors in 2019 January 7, 2019 -
  Let’s sum up what has happened since the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.
• Three Simple Steps to Higher Returns This Year January 4, 2019 -
  There are three steps you can take now - today - to earn higher returns this year no matter what the markets do.
• Charles Dickens: The Man Who Invented Christmas December 24, 2018 -
  In one small book, Dickens changed the culture, inspired his contemporaries and helped restore a holiday they were eager to revive.
• 2018: The Year Diversification Didn’t Work December 19, 2018 -
  Investors who hunt with a rifle not a shotgun - making concentrated investments rather than overdiversifying - still have winners to brag about this year.
• Turn Your Brokerage Account Into a World-Beating Hedge Fund December 17, 2018 -
  So why am I talking about Nicholas Vardy? Because Nicholas does something neither I nor anyone else does.
• Why I’m Bearish on France… and You Should Be Too December 14, 2018 -
  As France faces no good options, I turned to my good friend and Oxford Club ETF Strategist Nicholas Vardy to consider the best way to short the French market.
• Higher Stock Prices… More Volatility… and Portable Coffee December 10, 2018 -
  What does a portable coffee maker have to do with the stock market? I’ll tell you...

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

• Investing With the Wisdom of Crowds January 17, 2019 -
  Each investment strategy has its day, and the challenge is to combine the insights of different strategies into a single investment portfolio.
• The Quirky Father of Modern Economics January 15, 2019 -
  Americans recognize 1776 as the year the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. But there’s another reason 1776 is a turning point in history...
• Did These Funds Crack the Market’s Code? January 9, 2019 -
  A group of elite hedge funds had a great 2018, despite turbulence in the markets. What’s the secret to their success?
• My “Never Sell” Portfolio January 8, 2019 -
  At the close of 2018, I took some time to reflect on the events of the year and, as I surveyed my portfolio, I had an epiphany.
• Three Lessons From a Turbulent 2018 January 3, 2019 -
  At times like this, I like to reflect on some of the timeless lessons I have learned over my 20-year investing career.
• Why the U.S. Stock Market Will Rally 20% in 2019 December 31, 2018 -
  I find the generally negative consensus reassuring to my contrarian prediction for 2019: The U.S. stock market will rebound by at least 20% over the next 12 months.
• Accelerate Your Wealth With This “Portfolio of Strategies” December 20, 2018 -
  According to Financial Times, an astonishing 99% of actively managed U.S. equity funds trailed the market over a 10-year period.
• Invest Royally With the Dividend Aristocrats December 18, 2018 -
  It should come as no surprise that investing in these companies has beaten the S&P 500 over many years.
• Why You Should Try Everything Once… Even When Investing December 7, 2018 -
  It’s a big investment world out there. Why limit yourself to buying and holding only U.S. stocks?
• Report From The Oxford Club’s Austrian Wealth Retreat December 4, 2018 -
  I’ve just returned from Vienna and The Oxford Club’s Austrian Wealth Retreat. Here’s what we discussed...

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 best-sellers), 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. He donated the curriculum – which consisted of thousands of pages of advice and instruction – to the Wealth Science Institute, a non-profit 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

• Nobody Owes You Anything: From Gardener to Entrepreneur January 16, 2019 -
  Every minute you spend thinking about or asking for money you didn't earn is a minute wasted and a bad habit reinforced.
• The Radical Acceptance of Death and Its Benefits January 10, 2019 -
  When I think about making good use of the time I have left, it’s clear to me that working on my personal relationships should be my top priority.
• How to Accomplish All of Your Most Important Goals January 2, 2019 -
  The plan you are about to learn will pretty much guarantee that you’ll achieve your main objectives before you die.
• The “Early to Rise” Virtue December 5, 2018 -
  There is something about getting up earlier that seems wiser, nobler, smarter and just plain more industrious than working late.
• How to Protect Yourself From the Next Global Economic Collapse (Part 2) November 21, 2018 -
  Next year or next month or next week, we could wake up one morning to total financial chaos. Here’s what you can do about it.
• How to Protect Yourself From the Next Global Economic Collapse (Part 1) November 14, 2018 -
  Despite what you sometimes hear from the financial media and bullish investors, the U.S. economy is still very much in danger of another major financial collapse...
• When You’re in a Risky Investment, Take the Short Money November 7, 2018 -
  Combine pot shots and long shots and you have a sure shot to disaster.
• The Fastest Way to Grow Rich (and Not Risk Everything Else) October 12, 2018 -
  Making “getting rich” financially my supreme and overriding goal was ruthlessly effective, but there are other ways of being rich.
• A Monthly Budget That Will Help You Get Rich October 3, 2018 -
  Mental calculations leave you no money to save and invest, and no chance to increase your wealth. It doesn’t have to be that way.
• Smelling the Roses September 26, 2018 -
  You need money - lots of money - to own the symbols of wealth. But to get the feeling of wealth, you don’t need to spend much at all...

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

• The Best Investment Vehicle Ever Invented December 21, 2018 -
  The radical changes on Wall Street didn’t end in the 1970s. In fact, in 1993 came another revolution...
• Will Gridlock on Capitol Hill Sink the Mother of All Bull Markets? November 16, 2018 -
  There are many reasons to be optimistic. A divided Congress has been historically well received by Wall Street, GDP is growing at 4% and gross output is growing even faster.
• Are We Headed for Another Crash and Great Recession? October 17, 2018 -
  I’ve learned that Armageddon can be postponed time and time again. But it may be time to sound the alarm.
• What’s the Best Safe Haven During a Financial Crisis? September 11, 2018 -
  For us innocent investors, what is the best way to protect ourselves in anticipation of a short-term crisis or stock market crash?
• Eureka Moment in My Financial Class at Chapman August 15, 2018 -
  Gross output - an accounting statistic I developed - is a more accurate and comprehensive measure of the economy than GDP because it includes the supply chain.
• High-Tech Profit Is Here July 18, 2018 -
  Our country breeds innovators, scientists and entrepreneurs. So how can you invest today in the next great breakthroughs and disruptive technologies?
• Is Saving for Losers? June 13, 2018 -
  The well-known axiom “A penny saved is a penny earned” is attributed to Benjamin Franklin. But modern thinkers say that advice is outdated...
• Higher Dividends Predict Faster Earnings Growth April 18, 2018 -
  Rob Arnott, the “godfather of smart beta,” warns investors to stay away from flashy money losers like Tesla and instead gravitate toward high-dividend-paying value stocks like...
• This Bull Market Can Last Longer Than You Think! March 21, 2018 -
  Prior to this century, two bull markets lasted up to 12 years. The current bull is in year nine. So how much more of a melt-up do we have left?
• Why the Long-Run Strategy Beats Market Timing February 21, 2018 -
  Temptation is hard to overcome unless you have tremendous self-control. When it comes to enticing investment strategies, Mark advises you find your inner will...