InvestIdeas

Tony Robbins: The one thing all top investors do

The world's best investors have one thing in common—asymmetrical risk and reward, self-help author Tony Robbins says.

Robbins told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Friday that he reached that conclusion during the four years he spent writing his first book in two decades, "MONEY Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom."

In researching the book, Robbins said, he spoke with 50 of the world's top asset managers, hoping to help average people create a blueprint for becoming financially independent. It also has roots in the best-selling author's 21-year relationship with Tudor Investment Corporation founder Paul Tudor Jones.

"Paul's approach is,'If I'm going to invest the dollar, is it really a 5-to-1? Am I going to make five? I'm certain I'm going to make five,'" Robbins said.

Robbins said he began working with Jones after the hedge fund manager experienced a slump in the late '80s. He said Jones had lost track of the strategy that made him successful, and Robbins' job was to help him bring it back and systematize it.

More than two decades later, he said, he still corresponds with Jones daily to help him measure his performance and make sure his strategies are consistent, from the way he evaluates trades to what he does before executing them.

Consistent strategies are key to successful investing, Robbins said.

"It's about maximizing your capacity," Robbins said. "Everybody has certain strategies. It's really about making sure those strategies are consistent. What I try to do is make it simple enough that [Jones] follows through continuously, because what I've found is complexity is the enemy of execution."

At the same time that top investors look for asymmetric risk-reward, they acknowledge that they will be wrong some times.

"As a trader, you get stuck," Robbins said. "You don't want to take the hit and you're going to have to be able to do that if you're going to be an effective trader."

Simon & Schuster will release Robins's book next week. To research and write it, the self-help author consulted leading investors, such as Warren Buffett, Ray Dalio and Tudor Jones to create a plan for making sound financial decisions.

Robbins dedicated a chapter to exploring how Dalio designed his all-weather fund, a subject that the founder of Bridgewater Associates has never spoken about in detail.

Robbins said the inspiration for the book came from watching friends lose their homes and wealth during the financial crisis. His goal in writing it was to present principles from leading money managers in a simple way to give people the confidence to get back in the market.


Source: CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102185607

Tony Robbins’ Advice Is Financial Suicide

by Marc Lichtenfeld

Source: Investment U

http://www.investmentu.com/article/deta ... I4UvdKUd1Y

This Could Drastically Reduce the Quality of Your Retirement By Amber Lee Mason

"[It's] the equivalent of climbing Everest in flip-flops and a tank top. You were dead before you got started…"

Self-help guru Tony Robbins just published a book about personal finance and investing. Tony took a great approach to the book. Like we often do at Stansberry Research, he turned to the world's greatest traders and investors for their perspectives on what works in the market. He interviewed legendary money managers like Warren Buffett, Carl Icahn, Paul Tudor Jones, and Ray Dalio.

There are a lot of useful insights from these investment masters in the book.

But one of the book's strongest chapters covers a GIANT threat to returns… it's a threat that might be holding you back right now… and it could drastically reduce the quality of your retirement.

The threat? High fees.

We all intuitively know that paying high fees for any service will eat away at your wealth. But what you probably don't know is just how much money is being taken from you in your 401(k) or IRA. And you probably don't know what the real, hidden costs of many mutual funds are. If you learn what's going on, and take steps to reduce these fees, it could save you incredible amounts of money.

As Robbins put it, this idea can "put hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, back in your pocket." Get this right, and you can retire when you like… Get it wrong, and work an extra 10 or 15 years.

Here's why…

According to Forbes, the average cost of owning a mutual fund is more than 3% a year… And more than 4% if you're holding it in a taxable account or an expensive 401(k) plan.

"Not my funds," you're probably thinking. "I checked. They cost me less than 1%." But all you're seeing is the expense ratio… the cost of marketing and management. Forbes listed five other types of costs and fees you're paying, including brokerage commissions and transaction costs.

Now, 3% might not sound like a lot. But as regular readers know, even small yields can add up to big money over time… especially when you're buying champion dividend-raisers and reinvesting your dividends. But when you're paying those small yields, time works against you.

Here's a version of the chart Tony published to prove the point… The chart plots the returns of three people who invested $1 million for 30 years, but with different fee structures. As you can see, someone paying 1% annual fees ended up with 76% more money than someone paying 3% annual fees.

Please Enable Images to See this

The solution here is to avoid actively managed mutual funds – funds that try to beat the market by picking which stocks to buy and sell. All that trading and research pumps up the fees you're paying…

And you're likely not getting much for your money.

One study showed that from 1984 to 1998, only eight out of 200 fund managers beat a fund tracking the broad S&P 500 index. You had a 96% chance of underperforming the market… and paid big fees to do it.

The first thing to do is figure out what sorts of mutual funds you own now. Ask your broker where to find information on the fees you're paying to own these funds. And remember, the "expense ratio" doesn't tell you everything. There are trading costs and other expenses you'll never see. (Be especially careful of buying "load" funds that require you to pay costs upfront.)

If you discover you're in a high-cost, low-quality mutual fund, consider a low-cost market-tracking fund instead.

Tony mentions the Vanguard family of funds, which offers funds that cost between 0.05% and 0.25% "all in." If you can purchase exchange-traded funds (which are generally cheaper than mutual funds), the low-cost SPDR S&P 500 Fund (SPY) is one of the biggest and most popular. Its expense ratio is 0.1%. But keep in mind, you'll pay commissions to buy and sell ETF shares.

Check your 401(k) today. Check your IRA. If you're using a financial advisor, check to see if they are putting you in low-cost funds. If you own expensive, underperforming mutual funds, make the change today. Don't wait. The long-term effect of eliminating just 1% per year in fees is huge.

As Robbins put it, getting this right could mean "the difference between teeth-clenching anxiety about your bills or peace of mind to live as you wish and enjoy life."

Which would you rather have when you're ready to retire?

Source: Growth Stock Wire

The Four Obsessions of the World's Greatest Investors By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud

Want to be a great investor?

Then figure out what the world's greatest investors do… and do that. It's that simple.

Seriously!

I went as far as you can possibly go in school studying investing. But that's not how I learned to be a great investor.

I learned how to be a great investor by learning how the great investors actually made their money. I read as much as I could about their strategies. Then I "modeled" their behaviors to see what worked.

Surprisingly, what the legends did with their money was significantly different than what I learned in school. The theories I was taught in school didn't work out so well in the real world. The legends were rich and my professors weren't. You can't beat the lessons of real-world experience.

Over the years, I've fortunately had a great deal of investing success myself. Even so, I still like to learn how the greats think. That is where the secrets hide. So I was thrilled to see that self-help guru Tony Robbins interviewed 75 investing legends for his new book Money: Mastering the Game.

In his book, Tony says the legends he interviewed shared at least four common obsessions.

They are:


1) Don't Lose

I think this is the most important "obsession" of all…

Hedge-fund manager Paul Tudor Jones, for example, became a billionaire by investing. He has made money for his clients for 28 consecutive years. Here's what he says:

The most important thing for me is that my defense is 10 times more important than offense. You have to be very focused on the downside at all times.

In short, your main goal in investing is to never let a small loss turn into a big loss. In True Wealth, we do this by using trailing stops and diligently following them.


2) Risk a Little to Make a Lot

In True Wealth, I often say things like: "with a stop loss of 10%, our downside risk is 10% and our upside potential is 50%. That gives us a great reward-to-risk ratio."

That is the way you need to think about your investments.

The biggest problem with most investors is they believe you need to take "home-run" risks to have "home-run" returns. You don't.

The path to home-run returns is to make "asymmetric" bets – where your downside risk is much smaller than your upside potential.

Again, the simplest way to control your downside risk is with stop losses.


3) Anticipate

"Most people say 'Ready? Aim! Aim!" billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens told Tony Robbins, "but they never FIRE!"

"A lot of brilliant people are terrible investors," another legend told Tony. "The reason is they don't have the ability to make decisions with limited information. By the time you get all the information, everyone else knows it, and you no longer have the edge."

The simple message is, you can't wait to trade until everything looks great… Because once everything looks great, there's no upside left.

We invested in China when the picture was cloudy and everyone was scared. If we had waited, we would have missed the trade. Because we invested before everyone had all the information, we're up 40%.

So instead of trying to wait until things look perfect, you need to anticipate.


4) You're Never Done

"Contrary to what most people would expect, this group of achievers is never done!" Tony writes. "They're never done learning, they're never done earning, they're never done growing, they're never done giving!"

The group Tony interviewed is the most elite group of investors ever interviewed. I urge you to check out Money: Master the Game to learn even more about how they think.

I also urge you to remember these four "obsessions" of the investing greats. If you want to succeed in investing, make them your obsessions, too.

Source: Daily Wealth

Money Facts

According to Tony Robbins' new book, Money Master The Game, many Americans are in for tough times due to their lack of financial savvy.

He says:
75% of Americans can expect to see their assets disappear before they die
One in three baby boomers have less than $1,000 saved
48% of all working Americans have not even calculated how much they need to retire.

These are startling facts. In his book, Robbins reveals insights from more than 50 legendary financial experts in the world—including Warren Buffett, Ray Dalio, and Steve Forbes to create a simple 7-step blueprint that anyone can use for financial freedom.

Robbins uses storytelling to make even the most complex financial concepts simple.

Source: ETR

Anthony Robbins’ 12 Reasons Why People Don’t Get Wealthy

By David Cameron Gikandi

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/anth ... et-wealthy

"One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power.

Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular."

- Tony Robbins

How to Feel Alive and Happy By Tony Robbins

"Progress equals happiness. If you feel like you’re growing, expanding in psychology, in your humanity, in your emotion, in your capacity, in your economics, you feel alive.

We grow or we die. And you put a giant limitation on that based on where you live in the world, where you’re born unless you have access to certain resources and the most fundamental resource is learning.

It doesn’t even matter where you live. If you know how to learn, the world is yours.

This is important to me and that’s why I’ve committed the time, energy and capital to help make it work."

Source: ETR

5 Tips for Getting Rich from Tony Robbins


In a short 2:00 minute interview with Business Insider Tony Robbins revealed 5 key factors to getting rich.

Here's what he said:

1. Automate 10-15% off the top of your income into savings.

2. Become an insider - You have to understand right now what you don't know that could hurt you and learn to take advantage of it.

3. Make the game winnable by choosing a number in your mind that is achievable. That's your financial security number.

4. Your greatest investment should be in Asset Allocation.

5. Create an income for life.


http://www.businessinsider.com/tony-rob ... %20Insider)

Ten Things I Learned While Interviewing Tony Robbins By James Altucher


1. Ask lousy questions, get lousy answers.

Many people ask, “Why did this have to happen to me?” or “Why did I lose that job when I was good?”

These are lousy questions. You will never get an answer that makes your life better. I get bitter, resentful, and angry. And anger is a form of fear. I’m usually afraid that I’m going to go broke. And if I go broke, I’m afraid I’ll die.

You have to ask good questions: “What can I do to improve?” or “How can I find a better job?” or “How can I be grateful that I lost this job?”

Because inside of every problem are the seeds of a “difficult gratitude problem,” and it always improves your life to solve those problems.


2. To master anything, talk to the experts.

Tony told me about when he was 24 years old and wanted to train members of the military to shoot better.

“I had never shot a gun in my life,” he said. He was scared that he wouldn’t do a good job.

So how did he solve this problem? He spoke to five excellent sharpshooters, figured out what they all had in common, and then used that to increase the results of the students in the school by 50%.


3. Bring the target closer.

Specifically, he had every student move the target to only a few feet away. Everyone shot bull’s-eyes. Then, he moved the target back a foot. Bull’s-eyes. Then another foot, and so on.

This is true for everything in life. I look at an example Mark Cuban shared with me. He didn’t just start Broadcast.com and make $1 billion. First, he started a bar… then he started a computer business… then a hedge fund.

He brought the target very close and then moved it farther and farther away as he succeeded at hitting each goal.

I thought about teaching my 12-year-old daughter how to serve in tennis. First, I had her serve from the net. “All you have to do is hit the ball into this huge box,” I said. Then, when she got 10 in a row, I had her move back a few feet until she hit the baseline. Now, she has the most consistent serve on her team.


4. Look at goals differently.

Tony told us of one time when he asked people what their goals were. One guy said, “I want to make $1 billion!” At first, this would seem like an admirable goal – set it high! There’s that horrible saying, “Aim for the moon, because even if you miss it, you’ll find yourself among the stars.”

But Tony said this guy didn’t really understand his goal.

He broke it down. “Why do you want $1 billion?” And the guy’s first answer was, “I want my own plane.” Tony told him, “Well, a plane costs $100 million and you might only be flying 12 times a year. If you charter a jet for $30,000 an hour, it will take you forever to spend $100 million.” Suddenly, the guy didn’t need $1 billion anymore.

“By the end of that session,” Tony said, “it turns out to achieve the exact lifestyle he thought he needed a billion for, he needed $10 million.” This is still a lot of money. But this was Tony’s way of bringing the target closer.

When I read that in Tony’s book, I did the exercise with my wife, Claudia. Her numbers went down by 90% when we really went through it. What happens then? You feel relief. You don’t have to be on the hamster wheel of money for your whole life. What you want is freedom, not money.


5. Experts know they know nothing.

I get financial newsletters all the time that say, “The markets are going to zero!” or “This stock is going to go up 1,000%!” The reality is the experts know nothing. With every investment expert who Tony interviewed, they not only had a plan B, they also had a plan C, D, and E.

The best professionals in the business admit they know nothing.

Nobody can predict the future. Anything can happen. When I got out of the “future” business, I was much happier. I got into the possibility business.

This made me a lot more successful. Leave the future business for the possibility business, and the world will get infinitely larger.


6. Tony’s energy is infectious.

Someone once told me that Tony Robbins jumps up and down on a trampoline before speaking in front of 10,000 people. He wants his energy at its peak.

I thought about doing that before my most recent TED talk, but there was no trampoline available. But it’s true. When Tony came downstairs to talk to us, he was excited about the potential for his book to help people. It almost made me want to write about financial stuff again.


7. The Tony Robbins method.

In the interview, I said, “I figured it out. You use ‘the Tony Robbins method,’” which I defined as: at first you don’t know anything… you find five people who are the experts in the world… you extensively interview them… you figure out the simplest things they have in common with each other… you do that simple thing over and over.

And that’s how you succeed.


8. People need certainty. People need variety.

Everyone needs to know where his next meal is coming from. And maybe his next kiss. And maybe a bunch of things. We crave stability, which was the appeal of corporate jobs for the past 100 years (although that period is now slowly coming to an end).

But most of that stability is a lie. You have to find stability inside yourself first.

For me, it’s stable to make money from multiple sources. I know that if I have ideas every day, life will be more stable than if I don’t.

But we also need variety. A marriage will die if you stick to the same routine year after year (“the seven-year itch”). A job will get boring. We only have one life. It doesn’t mean you quit your marriage or quit your job, but always look for new things to learn. Always look for new ways to surprise. Always look for new ways to break out of your comfort zone.

It’s this dance of certainty and uncertainty that makes us human, and we often lean too much in one way or the other. Tony describes this in the book in a financial sense. His goal is to expose the lies in the financial community and get you thinking about how to provide stability there, so you can find variety in other parts of your life.


9. Show people you are grateful.

When we are young, we build strong neural circuits across our brains so electricity can pass quickly between certain neurons. This is why it’s easier to learn when we are young than when we are older.

After age 20, we lose the ability to “insulate” these neural circuits with myelin, the substance that cements these circuits for life. This is where our basic intelligence comes from: building as many circuits as possible with myelin protecting them.

The same thing happens with relationships… business, personal, family, etc. They start off young. That’s when you can build a “relationship myelin” around them. You do that by being honest with people, by showing gratitude, by not overusing the connection, by treating it just right so it develops into something that can last a lifetime.

If someone does something for you, show you are grateful.


10. Be the servant of many.

Tony said in the interview exactly how much he saved in taxes by moving from California to Florida. It was a big number. He had a big house. He has spoken in front of 3 million people. This is a process that took him 30 years.

The way he did it was by being the servant of many. By constantly adding value to others, you get value that comes back to you. It becomes natural.


Source: The James Altucher Report