Q&A With Liz Ann Sonders

Ted

FYI: The Wall Street Week advisory board is a prestigious group of industry professionals that help guide the show’s editorial content. We will periodically interview a different member of the board to discuss a range of relevant topics.

Liz Ann Sonders is the Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Strategist for Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., and was a frequent panelist and occasional guest host on the original Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser.
Regards,
Ted
http://wallstreetweek.com/read/liz-ann-sonders-advisory-board-interview/

Old_Skeet

I most always enjoy reading about Liz and her thinking ... This article is no different and is really good reading.

slick

Excellent. Should be required reading, and I certainly would not be upset if the New Wall Street Week went back to the type of setting that the original had. The backdrop on the new show is distracting. I too, stayed home until Rukeyser was completed. Lived only a few miles from the studio, and some times would run into the panelists while out at a restaurant on Fridays. I thought of them as very special, and learned quite a bit over the years, as these were the days that I was starting to learn about investing.

JohnChisum

Good reading and I agree with @slick that WSW should go to the original setting the show had during Lou's tenure.

Old_Joe

The main problem that I had with Liz on the "old" WSW was that I found it very hard to focus on what she was saying due to interfering thought waves.

Crash

Ya, me, too.

linter

oddly enough, gail dudeck (sp?) had that effect on me, too.

Crash

Back to the article, though: She's got smarts. That was a good read.

kevindow

Nice article except I'm not crazy about this part: "Get help. Don’t try to do it on your own." Young folks need to be engaged in their wealth creation, and continuously increase their knowledge of everything financial. Watch WSW, On the Money and NBR on TV. Read Money, Kiplinger, and the WSJ. Take advantage of the M* Classroom. The more one becomes educated, the more likely one will know if a financial advisor is primarily focused on the customer's or advisor's wealth creation, and one will be better able to ask intelligent questions and to monitor the performance of the advisor. So I would say that investors should become engaged and educated, and seek assistance as needed.

OJ, Crash and linter, I assume that you all were distracted by her intellect, right ?

Kevin

Old_Joe

@kevindow- I can see your point, but I have to wonder about the general landscape now out there. When my wife and I were young, we were predisposed to be savers, which is probably one of the most important factors in the whole puzzle. But there was a great dearth of resources from which to "continuously increase ... knowledge of everything financial." Lou Rukeyser's Wall Street Week was one of the few resources available, but even they could not cover the entire financial landscape, nor did they attempt to.

After a few abortive attempts to try stuff on our own, we came across an adviser who, of course, steered us into front loaded American funds. I made it quite clear to the adviser that I didn't like that load, but he justified it on the grounds that he was providing a service, would be available for help and consultation, and also needed to make a living.

He also pointed out that the ongoing American Fund ERs were significantly lower than competing products, and over time, would thus amortize the load. I grudgingly agreed, and used the American Funds exposure to ask lots and lots of questions, and the adviser was very good at explaining the realities of various financial products. An important part of my discussion here is that there were not nearly as many such products available at that time, so things were a lot simpler.

In summary, with a dearth of educational opportunity, an adviser turned out to be a good thing for us. Using that as a stepping stone, we eventually buttressed our American Funds exposure with lots of other no-load stuff from different sources.

Now, of course, it's a completely different situation, as you observe: "Watch WSW, On the Money and NBR on TV. Read Money, Kiplinger, and the WSJ. Take advantage of the M* Classroom." Certainly good advice there (although you might also have mentioned MFO!). But I do wonder if with the huge number of different types of investment vehicles now available it might not still be advisable to have an initial setup with a financial adviser just to get started, and begin the learning process from there. As we discuss here on a regular basis, there are so many financial products out there which are of questionable merit that it might well be difficult for a young person to avoid some of those traps on their own, especially as they are getting started. Once they get their feet wet with something reasonable, and are able to see how that performs (or doesn't), they will have a good platform to begin their own education, as you have noted. Of course a problem with this approach would be finding an appropriate financial adviser, but then that issue is forever with us.

BobC

This was an very good read. Liz Ann is a very intelligent person, and she expresses her thoughts in an easy-going style. She can be very fast, which is typical of someone with her level of smarts. But I have always found her commentary to be solid, well-spoken, and timely.

Her statement that young people need to save something, to start early, is certainly good advice. But unless there is some kind of forced savings plan, very few will follow through on the advice. I wish that I had known 'back then' what I know now. But telling this to younger people, who haven't been 'there' yet is difficult. Automatic enrollment in a corporate 401k plan, or 403b has a lot of attraction, and may be a way to get folks started.