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10 Wall Street Pick-up Lines to Avoid

  
  Education
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“If your proposed marriage contract has 47 pages, I suggest you not enter.”

This quote by Charles Munger hammers home the role of trust in an investment relationship.Michael Kitces of Nerds Eye View wrote a post entitled “What is the philosophy of your financial planning firm? It deals with what an advisor doesn’t believe in and what he/she wouldn’t recommend to clients. Engaging an advisor whose philosophy is based on trust, and who chooses to be a fiduciary for clients has many benefits for the average investor. Unfortunately, most financial advisors are not fee-only RIAs. Those who are only looking to have a “suitable relationship” with their customers may structure their business philosophy in a different manner. Many advisory firms have embraced a culture of sales and monthly quotas. Clearly that is a philosophy, but it is not necessarily a good one for the end user. If you find yourself surrounded by financial types using any of these types of pitches, be very afraid.

1. “Its like a CD.”

2. “Buying on margin will greatly increase your returns.”

3. “This fund did really well last year.”

4. “As long as the music is playing, you have to get up and dance.”

5. “Do you want the confirmation sent to your office or your mansion?”

6. “I have a very strong work ethic. The problem was my ethics in work.”

7. “I’ve got the guts to die. What I want to know is have you got the guts to live?”

8. “Greed is good.”

9. “Don’t pitch the b*tch.”

10. “Screw the credit derivative desk, I don’t understand half the sh*t they do anyway.” (more…)

14 things financial journalists won't tell you.

  
Analysis, Education
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IF YOU’RE READING the business section, you need to read between the lines. Here are 14 things financial journalists won’t tell you:

  1. That unbelievably telling anecdote at the top of my article? I scoured the country for three weeks to find that schmuck.
  2. The Dow industrials fell 263 points today. Why? By the time deadline arrives, I’ll have cooked up a reason.
  3. What qualifications do I possess? An ability to dial a telephone.
  4. Actually, I always wanted to be a sports reporter.
  5. Today, I had to bang out a long feature story on the mortgage market. My editor is looking to buy a new house.
  6. What qualifications do my sources possess? A willingness to pick up the receiver.
  7. If you saw my portfolio, you’d never ask me for financial advice.
  8. In the story, the company’s PR guy is quoted as saying, “no comment.” But on background, the senior counsel sung like a bird.
  9. The more the market falls, the giddier the newsroom gets.
  10. I don’t understand collateralized mortgage obligations, but I just wrote 1,000 words about them.
  11. My sources aren’t nearly as articulate as I make them sound.
  12. That joking, throwaway comment that the CFO made as we hung up? It’ll be in the second paragraph.
  13. We’ll get the online version up now, and figure out the real story for the print edition.
  14. I want my editors and sources to think I’m smart. What about readers? Yeah, I guess they’re also important.
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