Mr Wonderful and the not so Wonderful sales pitch

Since Brooke went on the last trip all by herself, it feels like it has been awhile since I’ve been on an adventure. Since my next planned trip isn’t until June, I thought I would share a mini adventure Brooke and I went on.

We got to see Kevin O’Leary speak, you know, Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank. He gave an amazing presentation, it was really interesting. He commented on some of his investments in Shark Tank and we looked closely at one in particular. He also gave us some of his rules of investing. But the presentation wasn’t all good, there were two speakers before him.

I think Brooke didn’t quite know what to expect at this presentation, and I didn’t either. I worried that Kevin O’Leary was going to sell us timeshares or something. So the first 2.5 hours of the event was a sales pitch, and goodness it just went on and on. Not to mention, I have been working in Sunnyvale lately, just on the opposite side of the freeway from the Great America hotel where the event was going to be. I drove down to pick up Brooke from her work in South San Jose, which was an hour in rush hour traffic. We got to the event in a rush. I also had thought there was going to be food at this event for some reason (spoiler: there wasn’t), so Brooke was hungry. I was very bored in the presentation, as it really was a sales pitch for a class on learning how to trade options. This included some very basic definitions of some financial investments, and as a former finance TA I wasn’t super impressed. I jotted some thoughts down at the event:

So as I sat in the workshop, I noticed people getting out their phones and taking pictures of the slides on the screen. It was the most basic financial information. Like just the definition of calls and puts on the screen.

After a whole presentation on using options to invest and make big money, and much waiting we finally heard from Kevin O’Leary (at like 9:30 pm). All of Mr. Wonderful’s advice contradicted what the last speaker said. The last speaker said diversification is overrated. Mr. Wonderful said diversification is the only free lunch in the stock market. Mr. Wonderful spoke on using fixed income securities for at least 35% of your portfolio, whereas the last speaker emphasized you need a 15% rate of return to build wealth (which only the riskiest of fixed income securities would offer [like government of Puerto Rico bonds level of risky]). The list goes on and on.

In the choice between the self-proclaimed multi-millionaire and Mr.Wonderful, I think I will follow Mr.Wonderful’s advice.