Are you searching for an advanced investing course?
An advanced investing course should cover the different methods that can be used by investors, not just go deep into one method. It should also emphasize what drives returns and how to manage risk. The instructor should be unbiased and experienced in various investing strategies in different types of economic environments.
So in this post, I’m going to share:
- What all you should learn in an advanced investing course
- What isn’t really an advanced investing course (even though it may be called an “advanced investing course” by the course creator)
- Why there aren’t more advanced investing courses primarily about stocks and bonds
- The 5 things to look for in an advanced investing course instructor
- 20 beginner to advanced investing methods that should be explained in any advanced investing course
- Popular types of online advanced investing courses
- My personal favorite advanced investing course
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What you should learn in an advanced investing course
An advanced investing course should cover the following 4 topics in depth with engaging content, such as videos and handouts.
1. How to define your financial goals
Investing begins with knowing your goals. These goals are usually for having either enough income generating assets or retirement savings to live off investments and other income streams by a certain age. If you don’t know how much money you need, you can’t invest in a way that will achieve it. Investing needs target goals so the results can be measured and assessed ongoing.
2. How to measure and manage your investment risk
Most investors haven’t calculated how much they stand to lose when (not if!) another bear market similar in magnitude to the three bear markets of the 2000s decade occurs. Any advanced investing course worth taking should step you through estimating your risk exposure.
It should also help you identify where you’re exposed to the 11 kinds of risk investors face, such as interest rate risk, inflation risk, and home value risk, not just stock market risk.
3. The different ways you can invest
Most advanced investing courses teach that there is one way to invest, and then proceed to teach that method.
This is often because of:
- Limited knowledge of various investing methods
- Instructor only has expertise in one only method
- Instructor bias due to products or services being sold by the instructor
- Limited experience or even awareness of various investing methods
The reality is that there are many ways to invest, including but not limited to:
- Long term investing
- Short term investing
- Investing based on financial market movement and economic cycles
- Active investing
- Passive investing
- Value investing
- Momentum investing
- Fixed asset allocation
- Income investing
- Sector rotation
- Asset class rotation
- Technical investing
- Fundamental investing
- Investing with individual securities
- Investing with ETFs
- Investing with mutual funds
- Robo Investing
- Investing through a financial advisor
- Investing in alternatives, such as real estate or business
These are most of the main ways individual investors like us can invest, and many of these methods can overlap synergistically to improve risk and returns.
An advanced investing course will give you at least an awareness of the many ways you can invest so you can choose the best option for you from a place of knowledge.
Let me share a little analogy that applies to choosing ANY investing method, including financial advisory services.
If you were going to buy a new car, and you had zero knowledge of the existence of car brands, would it be wise to go only to a Kia dealer for a car?
If you did, you wouldn’t have any idea how a Kia compared to a Toyota…or a Tesla.
You couldn’t make an educated choice, and you couldn’t assess the results because you weren’t aware of your other options.
Yet this is how most people are with one of, if not the most important purchase of their lives: the investment method they use to purchase the assets in their portfolios.
There are no shortcuts to truly understanding investing at an advanced level so you know the Kia’s from the Tesla’s in order to make the right choice. Yet it can only takes a few hours to master this level of understanding.
Knowing the methods also allows you to choose what works at any given time.
The reality is that there are times when:
- Stocks are dirt cheap
- Stocks are way overpriced (and the market is set to fall)
- Treasury bonds are super risky (because interest rates are about to rise)
- Real estate is dirt cheap
- Investment income is exceptionally high and within acceptable risk limits
If you only know one way to invest that ignores all the above circumstances when they occur (trust me, they all do), just think how much better your returns can be and how much you can lower risk by knowing what all is available, and how to assess what works when.
And what if you want to hire a financial advisor (which is really simply another way to invest)?
You’ll need to understand the various investing methods so you can hire the right person, and assess the job they are doing. (Note, however, that most financial advisors don’t use advanced investing strategies, which surprises most people after they become aware of this fact.)
Plus, if you use a financial advisor or any other investing method, it just makes sense to be able to evaluate the after cost performance of that method in comparison to other methods.
So in any advanced investing course, you’ll want to learn the different ways you can invest so you’re confident in how you invest, and able to adapt when needed, not just one method the instructor knows or likes.
4. What drives investment returns
Most investing courses focus on what to put in your portfolio, and in what percentages.
The reason we put our money at risk when we invest is to get results.
An advanced investing course should have a heavy focus on what fuels both risk and returns based on very long term history, not just the past decade or two.
What isn’t really an “advanced investing course”
…(even though it may be called an “advanced investing course” by the course creator)
An advanced investing course doesn’t go deep into only on investing method.
Let me explain.
Most investing courses teach asset allocation where you follow a readily available template that puts a percent of your investing capital into stocks and bonds based mostly on your age.
Period.
Here is an example of an asset allcoation template that might be suggested for a 50 year old investing in stocks and bonds:
US Large Cap (company) Stocks – 25%
US Mid Size Cap (company) Stocks – 15%
Small Cap (company) Stocks – 15%
International Stocks – 15%
Treasury Bonds – 20%
Corporate Bonds – 10%
Then funds (mutual funds or ETFs) are chosen for each percentage. Easy peasy.
I call this the white sauce of investing since everyone should know this as a foundation for investing, just like a white sauce recipe lays the foundation for cheese sauce. You’ve got to first know the white sauce recipe to make the cheese sauce and even more advanced sauces.
And also most financial advisors use this white sauce foundation so knowlegde of it will level the playing field and increase your confidence.
Sometimes white sauce investing works great, but sometimes it won’t take you to your financial goals, so you need to do something more or different. If you don’t know about anything more or different, you can’t do it, simply because it’s outside of your awareness as an option.
An advanced investing course doesn’t teach only this one way to invest. It teaches the various ways you can invest so you can choose one or more methods most likely to:
- Achieve your financial goals
- Align with your desired time committment
- Capitalize on your skills
- Optimize your investment capital
Why there aren’t more advanced investing courses?
1. There is a misunderstanding and lack of awareness and knowledge about advanced investing.
Most advanced investing course instructors only know the one way to invest described above, the white sauce, because this is how most investing has been done in recent years.
And these white sauce instructors believe if they go deep into that one simple method by expanding on how to pick funds, or how to rebalance your portfolio back to the template percentages annually, the course becomes an advanced investing course.
It doesn’t without the other 4 elements listed above that need to be covered in an advanced investing course.
2. There’s also the fact that most investors aren’t interested in becoming advanced investors (but if you’re reading this, you are, so kudos to you).
3. Investors being discouraged from doing anything besides white sauce investing in the media results in there not being a sufficient amount of advanced investing courses due to lack of awareness, need, or interest.
What to look for in an advanced investing course instructor
I’ve learned the hard way to be careful about who I listen to when it comes to investing.
Look for the following in an instuctor for any advanced investing course you’re considering:
- Someone who really is investing or has invested in the various investing methods
- Someone who isn’t trying to get you to hire them to invest your money
- An unbiased educator
- Someone who has invested in bull markets, bear markets, low interest rates, high interest rates, recessions, economic expansions, financial crisis, and Black Swans
- Someone who has hired, monitored, and evaluated various types of financial advisors
Advanced investing courses available online
The advanced investing courses I found taught:
- White sauce investing in detail
- Trading (by a former hedge fund manager)
- Real estate investing, starting a small business, and then investing in metal
- Venture capital investing
- Value investing in stocks
- Forex trading in a “crash course” book sold through WalMart (no kidding)
So I decided to create a course that takes investors of stocks, bonds and other defensive investments to an advanced level for more traditional investors, like me, that still appreciate a fairly passive core portfolio.
Also, in working with financial coaching clients I found that most of my clients assumed they were advanced investors because they had been investing a long time, or they had several investment accounts. They knew the basics of investing, such as what stocks, bonds, ETF’s, mutual funds, IRA’s, and 401k’s are, but they weren’t aware of the many ways they could invest or what really drives investment returns.
Some were working with financial advisors they weren’t happy with, and paying unusually high fees.
They weren’t reaching their financial goals with what they were doing, or they were always a little worried about their investments, and they were unclear what their other options were.
Advanced Investing Course Summary
It is my belief that all investors should learn about investing at an advanced level even if they hire a financial advisor for the reasons addressed in this post.
Think about all the decades and effort it takes to amass a good amount of investment savings vs the amount of time it takes to learn advanced investing methods. For example, my course takes 7 to 10 hours to complete, the time it takes to watch 4 movies, 2 afternoons of gardening, or play 18 holes of golf and have lunch afterwards. When compared to a lifetime of earning money, the time committment is quite miniscule.
Plus, having funds for life is imperative. In other words, investing well is just too important to not be a priority in our lives. Plus, it’s really rewarding to be a confident and successful investor.
Oh, and I promised I’d share my favorite advanced investing course. It’s my course and it’s here.
If you want to look for another advanced investing course, I hope this information will help you find what you need to reach your financial goals.
