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

• Is This Bull Market Getting Older… or Getting Better? May 21, 2019-
  It is impossible to predict when this bull market will end, so don’t scare yourself out of the stock market - just enjoy the ride.
• A Dumb Investment Question… and the Smartest One May 20, 2019-
  The stock market is unpredictable, which means that trying to guess what the market is going to do is a fruitless effort. Here’s what to consider instead.
• How You Got Richer Than the Wealthiest American Ever May 17, 2019-
  Although John D. Rockefeller was the wealthiest American of all time, consider that he didn’t experience the true wealth that most Americans have today.
• Are You an Asinine Investor? May 13, 2019-
  What can you learn from some of the greatest “sluggers” of all time, like Charlie Munger? How not to be an asinine investor for one thing.
• I Was Batboy to the Greatest Slugger of Them All May 10, 2019-
  Batboys can learn from the greats just by paying attention - which is exactly how Alexander Green learned some of the best investment strategies.
• These Businesses Have Been Decimated… and That’s Not Bad May 6, 2019-
  The shuttering of many small stores and strip malls may seem like a bad thing, but it is evidence that President Trump’s economic investment is working.
• In Defense of Big Business… and Big Profits April 29, 2019-
  These days, people like to think of big business as the Big Bad Wolf, but maybe we should be defending it - and the opportunities it provides - instead.
• The Worst Trading Technique Ever Devised April 26, 2019-
  You can make triple-digit gains with momentum stocks and the right technique. But make sure you know when to cut your losses!
• The One Financial Secret of the Top 3% April 22, 2019-
  There is no justice. Life isn’t fair. That may be true, but how you deal with the challenges that come your way is entirely up to you. How does your perspective affect your financial success?
• Two Roads to Wealth… One From a Business Genius April 19, 2019-
  There are plenty of ways to accumulate wealth, but the right one for you must suit your temperament. Are you risk averse or ready to take on the markets?

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

• Know When to Fold ‘Em: The Importance of Exits in Trading May 22, 2019-
  The market is unpredictable, and what you buy is only a small part of profitable trading. As part of your wealth-planning strategy, you must know your exit.
• Why Can’t the Smart Money Beat the Market? May 16, 2019-
  Over the past 10 years, hedge funds have underperformed the S&P 500. Nicholas Vardy explains why the same old investment strategies don’t work anymore.
• Should You Invest in Thematic ETFs? May 14, 2019-
  ETFs are hot right now. Thematic ETFs allow you to invest based on your social, political and demographic interests, but are they worth investing in?
• Should You Stick With Buffett and Berkshire? May 9, 2019-
  Berkshire Hathaway is enduring its worst stretch in history, causing Warren Buffett to reassess his investment strategies. Is Berkshire still a safe bet?
• Is a Stanford Degree the World’s Worst Investment? May 7, 2019-
  The recent college admissions scandal has left Nicholas Vardy scratching his head. Does the high price tag make a Stanford degree a terrible investment?
• Are We on the Verge of a Market Melt-Up? April 30, 2019-
  After a terrible December, the market is heading for a rally thanks to global financial economics. What does this mean for investors?
• Use This Red-Hot Strategy to Beat the Market April 25, 2019-
  Ready to cash in on one of today’s hottest investment strategies? Thanks to the advent of smart beta ETFs, it’s easier than ever.
• How Silicon Valley Beat Buffett April 23, 2019-
  Silicon Valley is hot, and the U.S. tech sector is enjoying a resurgence. Will the exponential growth driving the tech sector beat traditional value investing over the long term?
• What Rip Van Winkle Can Teach You About Investing April 18, 2019-
  You may think that Rip Van Winkle has nothing to do with investing, but imagine falling asleep for just a year. What would the market look like when you awoke?
• The Elephant in the Room April 16, 2019-
  It’s time to talk about the real reason your investments are falling short. We can give you the best advice in the world, but it won’t matter unless you take that advice.

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

• Take These Four Vital Steps When Disaster Strikes May 15, 2019-
  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.
• Do These Five Things… and Cut the Learning Curve in Half May 1, 2019-
  New entrepreneurs often encounter similar challenges when starting out: They know nothing about their business. But one solution can provide years of learning.
• How a $10 Bill Made Me Richer Than All My Friends April 17, 2019-
  I made this wealth-building commandment No. 1: Get a little bit richer every day.
• How to Survive and Profit From Black Swan Events April 10, 2019-
  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.
• You Can Live a Rich Life While Building Wealth April 3, 2019-
  Many people believe they have to scrimp severely to optimize their savings, while others spend everything they earn. But it is possible to live a rich life while acquiring wealth.
• Four Ways to Be Rich – Rate Yourself Now March 27, 2019-
  Being "rich" usually refers to financial wealth, but there are other ways you can be rich that will also improve your life.
• Facts and Fallacies About Building Wealth March 20, 2019-
  Six fallacies about building wealth and useful insights.
• How to Make Tough Decisions Easy March 6, 2019-
  Instead of using our experience to judge the validity of facts and figures, we judge the validity of our own experience by facts and figures.
• What You Should Ask Your Money Manager – Right Now February 27, 2019-
  The only way to know what you are paying a financial advisor or money manager is to ask them to disclose all costs clearly and fully.
• 10 Quick Ways to Improve Yourself Every Single Day February 13, 2019-
  Here are 10 “small” actions you can take every day that will make your life better.

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

• Should You Invest on a Hunch? April 24, 2019-
  Sometimes taking a gamble on a sports bet pays off, but can you trust your gut instincts when it comes to investing? Many Wall Street veterans offer similar advice...
• Bull Markets Are Lasting Longer and Getting Stronger March 13, 2019-
  Ten years ago marked the beginning of the longest bull market on record.
• Will China Survive Its Crisis? An Interview With the Legendary Mark Mobius February 20, 2019-
  Mark Mobius has survived and prospered in the toughest place to invest in the world: emerging markets.
• The Strong Case for Dividend Stocks January 23, 2019-
  The general belief is companies that have publicly announced a high and growing dividend policy are likely to work hard to continue their income policy.
• 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?