Most know Scott Adams only as the creator of Dilbert. But after a recent meeting with him at his Silicon Valley office, we think we know him a lot better than that.
We watched him draw Dilbert on a touch-sensitive PC that we're still salivating over. We got a closer look at one of the two local eateries that he owns. We heard first-hand about his new book, Dilbert 2.0. It was an engaging and entertaining conversation -- right up to the moment one of us mentioned stocks.
Whoops.
Here's what really caught our attention
Adams' passion for personal finance is matched only by his utter disdain for stocks. That's right, this keen observer of business and management trends believes that most people, himself included, cannot beat the market buying individual stocks -- especially when the companies behind those stocks are run by drunk chimpanzees.
It's a fair point -- drunk chimps can't do much. And yet, according to finance professor Kenneth French -- one-half of the team that revealed the market-beating potential of small cap value stocks such as Buffalo Wild Wings
Confusing the confusopolies
And that doesn't even address today's business climate. After meltdowns at Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual, it's easy to imagine Dogbert, CEO of Confusopoly Corp. (Ticker: HUH), convincing the world's bankers that an active market for commercial paper would melt Greenland. Or that ritual cat sacrifices are the key to global liquidity.
Laugh all you want, but bankers at Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch
Adams cites a severe distrust of weasels -- er, management -- as his reason for swearing off individual stocks. Makes sense to us. Investors were right to distrust the optimists at Citigroup
So what should you do?
Adams has nine steps that he says, when performed in order, can help you to generate -- and protect -- your wealth. We think his suggestions are pretty Foolish and thus, with his permission (thanks, Scott), publish them here:
- Make a will.
- Pay off your credit cards.
- Get term life insurance if you have a family to support.
- Fund your 401(k) to the maximum.
- Fund your IRA to the maximum.
- Buy a house if you want to live in a house and can afford it.
- Put six months' worth of expenses in a money market account.
- Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through any discount broker, and never touch it until retirement.
- If any of this confuses you, or if you have something special going on (retirement, college planning, tax issues), hire a fee-based financial planner.
You're not in Elbonia any more, Dilbert
Adams' nine steps look pretty familiar to us Fools -- we've always advocated paying off debt, saving for retirement, and having a substantial emergency fund. But avoid stocks altogether? We respectfully disagree.
But we do agree that if you're going to try to beat the market with stocks, you need to know what you're buying -- and you need to understand and trust management. That's why we and several of our Motley Fool Rule Breakers teammates recently spent a week in Silicon Valley meeting with executives at Exelixis
If you'd like to get the full story on what we discovered, as well as write-ups of each company we visited, simply click here, and we'll send you all of our trip dispatches, absolutely free.
Neither Tim Beyers nor Austin Edwards owned shares of any of the stocks mentioned in this article at the time of publication. Tim is a member of the market-beating Rule Breakers team, which counts Exelixis, Hansen Medical, and VMware among its holdings. Buffalo Wild Wings is a Motley Fool Hidden Gems recommendation. The Motley Fool owns shares of Exelixis and Buffalo Wild Wings. Its disclosure policy is thinking up new torture devices for Catbert, evil HR director, who jut took a gig consulting to some of Wall Street's biggest firms.
