ll on their HR departments and see if anyone was advising their employees about what they should do about their 401 (k) plans. His questions reminded me of these same sales-focused sales tactics because that is what statistical mumbo jumbo knowledge is intended for. It is intended to impress potential or current clients about how knowledgeable you are regarding the stock market while teaching you nothing about how to uncover great stocks.

Unsurprisingly, my answer

Are you currently being courted by a large investment firm that tells you they are the best investment firm in the business and shows you numerous tables and statistics to prove it? If you think that big investment firms’ objectives are vastly different than a Toys R Us or a Nike store, than this article is a must read for you.

Instead of going through a point by point checklist that exposes big investment firms’ true interests, I’ll reveal their motives through an anecdotal recollection of an interview I had, five or six years ago, with a nationally recognized investment firm in the U.S. that had over $20 billion of assets under management. During the course of my interview, I gave my interviewer answers that he did not want to hear. For example, he thought that by asking me where the Dow Jones Industrial index was that day, that he was testing my knowledge of investing. I answered, “I don’t know and I don’t care because it’s irrelevant.” When he expressed shock at my answer (even though Warren Buffet would tell you exactly the same thing), I asked him, “Can you tell me where the London Stock Exchange is trading at today? Can you tell me where the SET at Thailand closed yesterday? Can you tell me where the TSX in Canada is currently at?” Needless to say, he had no clue.

I asked him those questions to make my point that I was disappointed in the fact that someone from a highly advertised “creative, out-of-the-box” thinking big investment firm would ask me such “inside-the-box” kind of questions that were bogged down in statistics and other things that would never help a single soul discover a phenomenal stock opportunity. His interview questions conjured up memories of other useless things I had learned during my career from two Fortune 500 American investment firms, such as how to uncover companies that had just laid off tons of workers so I could call on their HR departments and see if anyone was advising their employees about what they should do about their 401 (k) plans. His questions reminded me of these same sales-focused sales tactics because that is what statistical mumbo jumbo knowledge is intended for. It is intended to impress potential or current clients about how knowledgeable you are regarding the stock market while teaching you nothing about how to uncover great stocks.

Unsurprisingly, my answers

n anecdotal recollection of an interview I had, five or six years ago, with a nationally recognized investment firm in the U.S. that had over $20 billion of assets under management. During the course of my interview, I gave my interviewer answers that he did not want to hear. For example, he thought that by asking me where the Dow Jones Industrial index was that day, that he was testing my knowledge of investing. I answered, “I don’t know and I don’t care because it’s irrelevant.” When he expressed shock at my answer (even though Warren Buffet would tell you exactly the same thing), I asked him, “Can you tell me where the London Stock Exchange is trading at today? Can you tell me where the SET at Thailand closed yesterday? Can you tell me where the TSX in Canada is currently at?” Needless to say, he had no clue.

I asked him those questions to make my point that I was disappointed in the fact that someone from a highly advertised “creative, out-of-the-box” thinking big investment firm would ask me such “inside-the-box” kind of questions that were bogged down in statistics and other things that would never help a single soul discover a phenomenal stock opportunity. His interview questions conjured up memories of other useless things I had learned during my career from two Fortune 500 American investment firms, such as how to uncover companies that had just laid off tons of workers so I could call on their HR departments and see if anyone was advising their employees about what they should do about their 401 (k) plans. His questions reminded me of these same sales-focused sales tactics because that is what statistical mumbo jumbo knowledge is intended for. It is intended to impress potential or current clients about how knowledgeable you are regarding the stock market while teaching you nothing about how to uncover great stocks.

Unsurprisingly, my answer

rrelevant.” When he expressed shock at my answer (even though Warren Buffet would tell you exactly the same thing), I asked him, “Can you tell me where the London Stock Exchange is trading at today? Can you tell me where the SET at Thailand closed yesterday? Can you tell me where the TSX in Canada is currently at?” Needless to say, he had no clue.

I asked him those questions to make my point that I was disappointed in the fact that someone from a highly advertised “creative, out-of-the-box” thinking big investment firm would ask me such “inside-the-box” kind of questions that were bogged down in statistics and other things that would never help a single soul discover a phenomenal stock opportunity. His interview questions conjured up memories of other useless things I had learned during my career from two Fortune 500 American investment firms, such as how to uncover companies that had just laid off tons of workers so I could call on their HR departments and see if anyone was advising their employees about what they should do about their 401 (k) plans. His questions reminded me of these same sales-focused sales tactics because that is what statistical mumbo jumbo knowledge is intended for. It is intended to impress potential or current clients about how knowledgeable you are regarding the stock market while teaching you nothing about how to uncover great stocks.

Unsurprisingly, my answer

d “creative, out-of-the-box” thinking big investment firm would ask me such “inside-the-box” kind of questions that were bogged down in statistics and other things that would never help a single soul discover a phenomenal stock opportunity. His interview questions conjured up memories of other useless things I had learned during my career from two Fortune 500 American investment firms, such as how to uncover companies that had just laid off tons of workers so I could call on their HR departments and see if anyone was advising their employees about what they should do about their 401 (k) plans. His questions reminded me of these same sales-focused sales tactics because that is what statistical mumbo jumbo knowledge is intended for. It is intended to impress potential or current clients about how knowledgeable you are regarding the stock market while teaching you nothing about how to uncover great stocks.

Unsurprisingly, my answer

ll on their HR departments and see if anyone was advising their employees about what they should do about their 401 (k) plans. His questions reminded me of these same sales-focused sales tactics because that is what statistical mumbo jumbo knowledge is intended for. It is intended to impress potential or current clients about how knowledgeable you are regarding the stock market while teaching you nothing about how to uncover great stocks.

Unsurprisingly, my answers did not please him, so he continued to pepper me with further useless questions. “Do you think the market is a bull or bear market?” he asked next.

“In what country?” I responded.

It was not an attempt to be smart with him, but since I had always been interested in buying foreign stocks, I wanted more clarification of the question. He didn’t answer, stunned that I would even need to ask that question. “The U.S, where else?” he replied. “Well it doesn’t really matter to me, because I look for stock opportunities globally,” I responded. “So to me it’s too narrow of a focus just to consider the U.S. market. And besides, if you’re implying through your question, do I think we should be in or out of the U.S. market, again, the answer is in the market regardless of whether it’s a bear or bull market. We can make money either way. If it’s a bear, then we’ll buy put options on some stocks and still make money. On other stocks, if we buy into the right stocks in the right industry, we should still make money, even in a bear market. Or look for opportunities overseas where markets may be booming.” This response received the same frown as did my first response.

Needless to say, the questions never got any better, and I did not receive a second interview. But to be honest, most investment firms would not have hired me with those answers. However, that interview taught me an important lesson. It taught me that as long I had one foot still firmly implanted in an investment career, I never wanted to work for a large investment house again. After having been through similar interviews at Wall Street firms in prior years, I knew that big firms could never teach me anything besides how to sell stock portfolios to ultra-wealthy individuals, but not how to manage their money efficiently. It also taught me that almost all large investment firms, especially the on