Simple Solutions
Don and Tom open with the investor mistakes Christine Benz highlighted in Morningstar: portfolio sprawl, concentration in the same large-cap tech names, clinging to ancient active funds, ignoring reallocations, and failing at both asset allocation and asset location. The show then shifts into calls—first about fears of an “AI crash,” then a heartbreaking case of an 80-year-old widow stuck in an expensive, incoherent Schwab-built portfolio, which Don dismantles live. Later, Roth conversion strategy, smishing scams, and a closing riff on Bitcoin’s extreme volatility versus gold. A packed episode on how bad habits, high fees, and fear derail investors—and how a simple, globally diversified plan avoids most of it.
0:04 Intro and Christine Benz’s list of common portfolio mistakes
0:56 Portfolio sprawl and “hodgepodge-itis”
1:32 Overloaded baskets of large-cap tech stocks
2:52 The 31-year-old underperforming fund problem
3:54 Active vs. passive: the shift the industry still hasn’t admitted
4:03 Asset allocation errors driven by ignoring the plan
4:51 Why rebalancing matters (and why people never do it)
5:40 Asset location mistakes and why taxes demand a smarter structure
6:15 Why these errors are easy to fix with a simple plan
7:58 Don solo; open phones
8:23 Caller: Fear of an “AI crash” and whether it can tank the market
11:16 Building a portfolio that can withstand any crash
13:01 International ballast and why planning matters more than predictions
14:27 Don solo again; open phones
15:17 Smishing scams and the rise of SMS-based fraud
16:13 How cheap scam-software makes fraud explode
17:08 Caller: 80-year-old widow with an awful Schwab portfolio
18:27 Don investigates the tickers—high fees, obscure funds, bad structure
19:57 Schwab dropped her; Don: “This advisor should be fired”
21:07 Why the portfolio lost money and what those numbers really mean
22:26 Active funds, high turnover, and tax drag
24:01 Don’s verdict: unload the mess and move to simple, low-cost indexing
25:01 Why a target-date fund may be the cleanest fix
26:33 Take the risk quiz; why advisors should be boring
27:00 Don vents about industry incompetence and fee-only failures
28:23 Why advisors chase “exciting” instead of sound
30:02 Caller: Roth conversion when 70% of assets are in traditional IRAs
31:25 Why conversion benefits are minor but sometimes worthwhile
32:33 Strategy: convert up to top of the 24% bracket
33:19 Wrap-up and call for last questions
34:56 Gold vs. Bitcoin: which is actually stable?
36:09 Why Bitcoin’s volatility makes it a terrible “currency”