Roger C. Davis Releases WALL STREET'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU
By: Christina Mancuso Nov. 03, 2015
'Wall Street's Just Not That Into You: An Insider's Guide to Protecting and Growing Wealth' by Roger C. Davis (Bibliomotion, Inc.; November 3, 2015)
"If you have money in the market, you should read this book." - Keith Ferrazzi, author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller Never Eat Alone and Who's Got Your Back
"In his book Wall Street's Just Not That Into You, Roger Davis outlines an insightful approach to investing and to life. He starts with the premise that your stocks, bonds, and other investments don't know you own them, and he explores successful strategies to adapt to that reality." - Ambassador Frank Baxter, former CEO of Jefferies and Company
Many consider themselves long-term investors, and chances are, they have placed their money and trust with an advisor, and pay little attention the amount of risk in their portfolio. The fact is that Wall Street has no intrinsic interest in looking out for investors. Drawing on more than twenty years of experience as a finance industry expert, Roger Davis urges investors to be wary of Wall Street's "one-size-fits-all" approach.
In his new book, 'Wall Street's Just Not That Into You: An Insider's Guide to Protecting and Growing Wealth' (Bibliomotion, Inc.; November 3, 2015) Davis provides readers with specific steps they can take to reduce investment risk, ask the right questions, and fund the life they want to live.
"Whether you're a wealthy or frugal investor, this book will probably confirm some of your suspicions about Wall Street and open your eyes to others," said Davis. "You will find strategies designed to help you protect and grow your wealth."
He explains that the investment community is split into two distinct groups:
The Buy-and-Hold Investors: This largest group believes that successful investing is predicated on investing in a diverse set of investments and holding them for a very long time. This group emphasizes financial planning, asset allocation, and diversification.
The Tactical Investors: This second and much smaller group tends to focus on making tactical investments given current market conditions, the availability of favorable investment opportunities, and risk management. They favor investment systems, such as trend-following systems and countertrend systems.
"I've come to believe that, rather than being mutually exclusive, these two philosophies are quite complementary," Davis writes.
Wall Street's Just Not That Into You illuminates Davis' efforts to combine the best elements of both of these philosophies: tactical portfolio management in conjunction with robust goal setting and planning truly is a rational approach for readers to chart their financial futures.
"There is no absolute right and absolute wrong in investing, but there is wisdom in assessing current market conditions and prevailing trends within the context of an investor's long-term goals," he says.
Davis' easy-to-digest, no-nonsense approach boldly questions traditional investment methods, exposing the inherent dangers of relying on any one technique to manage risks. Readers will be taught critical, innovative strategies designed to protect and grow wealth, such as "losing your losers" and how to stress test your portfolio.
When it comes to raising a family, investing in a child's future, and planning for retirement, Davis draws on real-life examples and personal accounts to help readers navigate the wealth management process as they are faced with life's challenges. His insights guide readers to establish their values and determine their unique goals so that they can get the most utility from their investments.
"The most important thing I do in initial consultations with clients is to discover what's important to them," he writes. "Your money should help you accomplish that which is most important to you."
Davis reveals that most investors are less concerned about making a sizeable return on their investments than they are about protecting their wealth, yet many investors have the same unprotected exposure to the stock market that they did in 2008. Wall Street's Just Not That Into You offers a bold and thought-provoking alternative for readers so that their wealth fulfills its true purpose: funding the lives they want to live."
Roger Davis is a wealth manager for successful families and individuals, speaker, and author of Wall Street's Just Not That Into You: An Insider's Guide to Protecting and Growing Wealth (Bibliomotion, 2015). He is CEO of Woodridge Wealth Management, LLC (WWM) and runs the operations of Woodridge Equity Partners, LP.
Roger has over twenty years' experience working in the financial services industry. Prior to the formation of WWM and its predecessors, he was Senior Vice President at UBS Financial Services and from 1996 to 2000 he was a limited partner at J.C. Bradford & Co. where he served as a member of the senior advisory council. Davis has worked as a financial advisor since 1992, beginning his career at Dean Witter Reynolds.
Roger's experience is broad, ranging from the completion of a $50,000,000 private bond offerings to managing endowment assets for a large southeastern seminary. He has served as an advisor to Deposit Guaranty National Bank and later its successor, First American National Bank. The combined banks had more than $4 billion in fixed-income assets and are now a part of Regions Financial Corp. In addition to his experience managing money and executing large transactions, Roger has practical business experience as a board member and shareholder for several successful private companies. He has served numerous non-profits as a board member and is currently a member of the board of directors for the Santa Monica Rotary Club. Roger received a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Mississippi in 1991 and lives in Los Angeles CA with his wife and two children.
An Interview with Roger Davis, Author of 'Wall Street's Just Not That Into You'
Q: What makes your book unique from other books on smart investing practices in the market?
"Most books on finance or investing either focus primarily on investor behavior and financial planning or on some prediction that the market is going to do something extreme (like go way up or way down). The books in the former category for the most part rehash the ideas everyone already knows: like start investing early, don't over concentrate your investments in one stock, don't spend more than you make. Or they talk about investing in ways that average people can't invest. There may be two dozen people in the country who have the money necessary to invest like Warren Buffett does. When he makes an investment he does so with enough capital to either buy the company outright or buys enough of the stock such that the management of the company consults with him on strategy, etc. There are very few people with that sort of access.
"The books in the latter category are generally making some sort of dramatic market call: get in now before the Dow goes to 50,000; or get out now before the Dow goes to 5000; buy gold or buy real estate, that sort of thing. This book is about protecting and growing wealth in ways that are accessible to and possible for affluent investors. It charts a rational approach that isn't predicated on the market going up forever or on a devastating crash that may be just around the corner."
Q: What is Wall Street's "one-size-fits-all" approach, and why should investors be wary?
"One of the things that I talk about in the book, though it's not a thought original to me, is that Wall Street has a tendency to act as if we are in a perpetual bull market. We simply know this isn't reality. Strategies that work well in a secular bull market might perform very poorly in a secular bear market. So, in a sense the "one size fits all" reference speaks to the fact that markets can have very different characteristics and those characteristics should be given consideration when making investment decisions."
Q: Which traditional investment techniques are no longer working, and why?
"It's hard to say that something is "not working" any longer. It's fair to say that the markets are far more correlated than they were ten years ago. This means that an asset allocation may not protect the value of their investments given certain market conditions. Many advisors use asset allocation as the lone risk management tool. That's likely to cause problems for investors down the road."
Q: What are some of the biggest risks investors face in today's market?
"There are bad actors in every field and Wall Street has its fair share of those guys. The risk most investors face, however, isn't that somebody is going to run off with their money, it's that a well-meaning guy is going to hold their hand through a cyclical bear market that wipes out a considerable portion of their wealth. Another risk is that we enter and inflationary bear market, which we haven't had since the 1970's, that causes bond prices to fall in a way that most investors haven't ever experienced. Unlike the last two big market declines when bonds have done relatively well, investors with a typical balanced portfolio will suffer losses in their stock and bond portfolios. They will simultaneously lose purchasing power, which will have a particularly negative impact on retirees who aren't actively earning new income and those on a fixed income, and see the value of their investments decline."
Q: What advice can you give to investors to help them navigate difficult markets?
"It may be that your adviser's plan is to simply stay with your current investment allocation no matter what happens in the global and domestic markets. If you haven't heard from your adviser that he has another way of managing risk, then it's safe to assume that the plan involves doing nothing. And it may be that that's exactly what you want. Or it may be what you think you want.
"If it's not what you want or if you don't know what the plan is then you should ask a few questions of your adviser. Questions like:
1. Under what circumstances will you reduce the stock market exposure in my portfolio?
2. What will happen to the value of my bond portfolio if interest rates go up over the next five years? What will you do to protect me in that event?
"Investors must take responsibility for their financial lives. If your financial future is predicated on stocks going up or 'doing well' or 'coming back' you are taking enormous risk. Don't bet your future on the stock market going up forever."
Bibliomotion is a book publishing house designed for the new publishing landscape. While many publishers work to retrofit old processes for new realities, Bibliomotion was founded by book-industry veterans who believe the best approach is a fresh one - one that focuses on empowering authors and serving readers above all else. Moving away from the top-down model that has dominated the publishing process for years, we give each member of the team - including the author - a seat at the table from the very beginning and in doing so, work side-by-side to launch and sell the best content possible, making it available in a variety of forms.
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