Ep. 1987: The Fee Machine

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We're making money making sense. So the rules stick in your talk in real money.

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Yes, those rules are going to school. We're gonna school use on the rules of financial physics, the laws of financial physics from the uh the the massive tome that Tom is carefully lifting from its altar

Financial Physics Returns

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there in the office. Oh no, it's not that thick. Oh. It seems like the laws of financial physics would be thicker than that, doesn't it?

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It would be the bigger book, but but frankly, with the torn rotator cuff, just lifting this is enough.

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So Yeah, that's probably true. Torn rotator cuff. That's just you falling apart in old age.

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Torn meniscus, torn rotator cuffs. Come on, come on.

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You know how old you are. You just went to your 50th high school reunion.

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I I can clearly remember, by the way, when my dad told me he was going to his, I was like, wait, those people some of those people are still alive? That's crazy. So yeah, I went. It was um no offense to my friends at Bellevue High School who have there were a few people I wanted to see, and then I saw them and I looked around the rest of them like I I don't know any of these other people.

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I remember going to mine a couple of years ago and going, Well, who are these old people?

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I know. Looking around, going, what the fuck?

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These are really old people.

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I know. So mm-mm. And the sadder part, frankly, was when they put the pictures up on the screen of the people that have passed on, who two of whom were very good buddies of mine. So that kind of three, actually, kind of.

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We're people of a certain age. Trevor

Reunion Reflections

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Burrus, Jr.: The zone, as they say. Everybody's the dying zone. Hey, welcome to Talking Real Money, the podcast. This is the Monday edition where we cover the laws of financial physics until we finish the book. And then I don't know what we're gonna do about that. Oh, we'll find another book.

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Trevor Burrus, Jr.

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We'll come up with something. Maybe Tom will get his done. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

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That won't be done by then.

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I don't think we're gonna read from your book on the show.

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I don't think so either, because when you see the stories I've included, you'll be like, no. Line through there, lawyer this.

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So I was just gonna say, do I need an at should I hire an attorney now?

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Prior restraint sounds proper in this case.

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So uh all all of you blankety-blank esquires out there, uh, you know, if you want to start bidding on my work, you're gonna be busy for a long time.

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There's a lot of lines, yes.

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Anyway, uh here we are talking about the laws of financial physics. And what law of financial physics are we up to there, Tommy?

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11. 11. This is how many of these things are there, by the way? Uh I think they're 30. No, it's not 30.

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28? 18. Oh.

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Oh my gosh, we're seven away from done. I I know. So uh this is my retirement party. Um this is uh this is actually I think you even said this in here. The the author said uh this is one of the most powerful. One of the most powerful.

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That is the No, you are building this one up.

Fees and Returns

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I know.

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Fee to risk ratio, free fee to risk reward ratio. In other words, how much you make it to risk slash reward ratio.

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Yeah, whether you're you you how much you're gonna make, how much you're gonna yeah, how much risk you're gonna take, how much you're gonna make. Yeah. Okay.

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And I got it. This one, as as the author points out, should be obvious, but it's really not. And the industry will tell you, no, that the there's no correlation between higher fees and lower returns. No, no, no, no. Because you made a lot more money. I picked the right stocks for you.

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Trevor Burrus, Jr.: It's just this is one of those truly duh rules, like duh, of course, because bear in mind if somebody charges more to make the same amount of money, they generally need to take more risk. That's pretty much the way it works. The risk-reward ratio uh is affected by the cost. You have to take more risk to cover those higher costs.

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And it you've even pointed out here a couple of cases, though, where if you just were buying the standard and poor's 500, where something like 80% of all money resides today, it's some ridiculous number. But you can still buy an S P 500 fund for, you know, 80 basis points, but you could turn around and buy it from Vanguard for three. Right. So I mean, it's and but people are still doing it. People are still way overpaying for just an index. But most of the time, they're way overpaying for funds from companies like American funds or T Row Price, where they're averaging out 75, 80 basis points, and they're going to tell you that's okay because we've got really smart people here that can tell you ahead of time which stocks to be in, which part of the market's going to do better, et cetera. Um, uh the the the we've talked about SPIVA, we've talked about other places which tracks uh the returns of actual funds, and uh no, you end up with less money. But uh what I love about the author in this is actual dollar amounts. I think at one point they talk about 90 years, S P 500. Uh where's that number? But uh but how much more you would have made? Oh, here we go. 100,000 in a mutual fund making 8% instead of 10. It's a difference uh of about $300,000 over over that period of time. It's pretty shocking what a difference those fees can really make, especially in funds which have made less, as you point out.

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Now, what did you say the expense ratio was on VOO, the Vanguard S500? I think you're there. And you said that there are funds charging as much as like 80 basis points eight cents per percent.

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Right.

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Oh, you haven't seen nothing yet.

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Not even getting warmed up, huh?

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Not even getting warmed up. Believe it or not, this is shocking.

Ridex Shock

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There is a fund out there from our friends at Rydex who are the champions of overcharging. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

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Well, they were but and they were the champions of you know leverage and all those things 25 years ago. They were the forerunners of all that stuff. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

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They have a plain old S P 500 fund, the Rydex S Pive Hundred Fund. They have a certain share class called Class C, which is the liar load class.

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Take a little bit out every year to pay the people selling it?

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Yeah.

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Grotesque and gross, yes.

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It's gross, it's horrible, it's awful. No, it's not not one percent, Tom. Excuse me? It's not one and a half percent, Tom.

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Oh my goodness.

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No, it's not two percent, Tom.

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Oh, yeah. I can't even run the percentage between that and zero point zero three. Somebody smart can.

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Uh that's like a hundred times cheaper. Yeah.

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Uh how much money is, if I can ask, is in that particular fund?

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Well, you know, I didn't look that up.

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Well, that's just crazy because, you know, again, talk about that's that's worse than having you know all of your money in the Bank of America savings program at 0.01. That's one of our one of our favorite. Well, you can't help yourself. Like what why is it just all you gotta do is get online and move it over to a high-yield savings count that's paying almost four now, I think, or maybe paying four. So the RYDEX S P 500.

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Well, I I meant to look it up. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

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That's as we used to say in the old days, an outrage of the week. I mean, frankly, at two and a two and a quarter.

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I can't believe there's a fund that is an index fund that charges that much. And let's just find out how much money is actually in that particular fund.

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I hope it's like four dollars or something.

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Um no, it's actually it's not a small amount for a fund that expensive. $165 million.

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I mean that's not huge, but people if you're in that fund, stop immediately, move it to move it to the if you're gonna own the SP $500, just go to Vanguard and order.

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And actually, this is wait a minute, this is the perfect example of the theory where I say that higher fees lead to higher risk or lower reward. Okay? The Ritex fund, let's look at, let's just go out to 10 years. Let's go to 10 years. The 10-year return on the Ritex S P 500 fund was 12.77% per year.

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That's great, great return.

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Well, but the return on the S P five hundred over that same ten-year period, fifteen point four four percent, or almost exactly the expense ratio.

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That's that's just you pay more, you make less. Wow. Okay, and I was thinking about fees and returns a bit after reading this chapter. Um

Hedge Funds Lose

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it's fascinating. What what type of investment charges the highest fees? Yeah, I well, I'll give it to you. Hedge funds generally, it's a lot of people. Oh, yeah, yeah, sure.

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Or even three and thirty on some of the ones who think a lot of themselves.

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And then 20% of the profits, right? It's really, really expensive. And how, in the only measurement you can actually trust, have they done compared to an index?

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Uh a lot lower?

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The remember member Buffett did the the challenge with the SP 100. I don't remember the number. Oh, it was uh huge beta. I mean, pardon me, huge difference between the return of the S P 500.

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You can type it in SP 500 and Yeah, I'm actually I'm actually doing the return difference. I'm doing some math here.

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Yeah, it's it's a lot. And this is the place where the smartest of the smart, the best computers, the best AI, everything. I mean, I'm reading the book right now on Ray Dalio of Bridgewater, which is wow. Don't get a job there if you want to be in this business, is all I can say. But um, very strange place. Anyway, I mean, that to me struck me as that's the greatest example of where you can pay the most and end up with the least over and over and over again. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

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And and yet those who want to feel like they're special continue to go to these companies, these private equity managers, these hedge funds or whatever they might be, and generally end up performing worse just because they get the feeling that they're special? I'm not sure. Ran the numbers, by the way, on the Ridex fund versus the S P 500. Yes. If you had $100,000 in the Ridex fund 10 years ago and you left it in, Sledic Compound over the last 10 years, it would be about $330,000. Not bad. Yep. Not bad. Tripled your money. Yeah. Pretty good. But but if you had it in the S P $500 like VOO, it would be about $420,000. That's $90,000.

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That sounds like one of my summer vacations right there, right? I mean, that's the difference.

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Actually, even for you, that's more like two summer vacations.

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Oh my goodness, that's crazy to think about. Um okay, that's number the the hedge

New ETFs, Same Game

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funds one. The other one that struck me as I was considering this topic last night is all of the new products that are coming out. Then there's like however many ETFs a day. I mean, it's some ridiculous number. Are those index products or are those actively managed kind of expensive ones? Well, the index market's pretty well covered. There's not a lot of people issuing new index funds because, well, you can already buy the Russell 1000, whatever it is, whatever index exists, you can always buy that fund. So the products that are coming out that you're excited about, the new stuff that's on the market today that you really should not consider, are generally active and they're generally more expensive because that's the part of the market they can still sort of infiltrate, if you will. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

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Because of the pitch. It's all about the they're looking for something to add some sizzle to what we believe, and and we truly very fervently believe that investing is only effective if it's, as Harry Markowitz said, boring, like watching paint dry or grass grow.

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My grass grows fast.

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I don't know about yours, but I live in Florida. Everything grows fast.

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Trevor Burrus, Jr. Except for your hair.

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Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, but but if you go out in the backyard and you watch it, okay. Can you literally see it growing?

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Trevor Burrus, Jr.: maybe doing that in the days ahead now that I'm sitting at home on my own. Who knows? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

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Oh, Tom. He sent his daughter off to college. And I think the reason he's really upset is because the college's mascot is the Broncos, and I think that's really upset.

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Additional pain observed by that.

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She did it on purpose. She probably did it because she likes me best.

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Probably does. She doesn't know you as well as she knows me. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. I'm a nicer guy in her in her mind.

Expense Ratios to Avoid

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Okay. So here's the question at hand. Because this is a very important chapter, very important rule. What is the highest expense ratio someone should pay on a fund, on an exchange traded fund or mutual fund?

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In a general sense, I think that half a percent or less that I was going to say 30 basis points. Yeah, but do you have some, you know, like emerging markets funds that can be a little bit more expensive. They can get up into the third they can get up into the 30s, I believe. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

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But I would look at my portfolio and I would number one, I'd see the family they come from, right? Because if they come from American funds or any of the rest of that, you know what? That's gone. Number two, I I guess we I guess we can negotiate and say 40 basis points. If it's 40 bips or higher, I think you're just wasting your money. Yeah, I think you're wasting your money.

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Want some stats? I got you numbers. Uh last year, 2025, 1162 new new ETFs were launched. 97 a month. 97 a month.

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That's like three a day.

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Of those, 1,000 were actively managed.

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Of course they were. Yeah. Tells you everything you need to know.

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Just 160?

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A little over 160. I guess they can they can say the passive ones are still the, you know, 2x NVIDIA, right? That's still a lot of claim that, right, because that's not actively managed. They're not picking a stock. They're just levering up.

SPEAKER_05 14:47

Wow. So this is kind of sad. And it it's uh yet another chapter down in the book of financial physics. I think we have seven more weeks.

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I can see now you're getting a little wistful. Do I have to write another book? Certainly you gotta get busy and seven. Maybe I need a new chapter.

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I don't think I can think of another one.

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We could do your historical fiction book, which I really love.

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That is not talking real money. That's talking about money.

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It's talking about money involved in there's boy, is it there. Yeah.

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Anyway. Um Thanks for being a part of this exciting return to school.

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If you have questions, it is that time of year.

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If you have questions, we we like those. We do. We like you sending them in to us at talkingrealmoney.com. And you can uh either speak them or you can type them. Tom likes the typing, and thanks for typing them up because his pile of papers growing by a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 15:47

You got a couple of those there for us, Tom? I yeah, I just saw my brother over the weekend and I told him about the war on trees. He couldn't believe that was a thing. I said that that's not there's actual that phrase actually.

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These are talking real money memes. We have the Model Military Aircraft Museum and the War on Trees.

ETF Transfer Trick

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Emerson, Georgia, Jeff writes. I wanted to move my friends, my funds from VT Sacks, VTSAX, and VTWAx into exchange traded funds. They're both held at truest, but I'm in the process of moving them to Vanguard. I'm under the impression, excuse me, that once in Vanguard I can do an in-kind transfer to an ETF without any tax implications. This is true, right?

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Yes.

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Um I I do they do that automatically for you? Do you have to trigger something? But yeah, you can do that. That's part of the neat trick that they came up with with exchange traded funds.

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They even patented that trick.

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Which I think now the patent has been. The patent has run out.

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Yeah.

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But yeah, so you could take that money you held at a mutual fund and move it into the ETF, which has distinct tax advantages over a mutual fund. So I think if you're in that situation, it makes sense, right?

SPEAKER_05 16:56

Yeah. Oh, sh in a taxable account, it makes massive amounts of s of sense because you avoid that capital gain from the sale, because you're really not selling, you're just trading it. And then from then on, you get deferred capital, uh unrealized capital gains. As long as they're unrealized capital gains, they just keep deferring until they are realized. So that's the growth in the share price that occurs that is outside of reinvestment.

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Trevor Burrus, Jr.

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And that is due to the structure of an ETF, where instead of something being sold and purchased, they're simply handing shares from one party to another, sort of inside, if you will, the ETF. It's an easier process.

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So it's actually a really smart

Inheriting the House

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thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Yep. All right. Next question. We go to Federal Way, Washington, Catherine. Hello, my wife and I were together 36 years before she passed away recently. Oh, I'm sorry. That's hard to hear. Uh, have no kids of my own, and she has one left. The house was in both of our names and is now in my name. My question: what is the easiest way to leave the house to my stepson? I'm in Washington, and T O D is one option. But what about a joint ownership with right of survivorship or just leave it to him in the will? I don't anticipate any trouble from distant relatives. Want to make everything as easy as possible when I update my will. Thank you. Love listening to you guys.

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I worry so much about joint tenancy. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Well, the you wouldn't want to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_05 18:18

Because that gives the other person ownership. And there's a tax liability. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Correct. So because if you if you this is this comes up a lot. I'm going to buy a house for my kid. No, it makes more sense for you to buy it yourself. You to die, they get to step up in basis upon your passing. Why would you want to mess with that at all?

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Trevor Burrus Now you can certainly the easiest way to pass it to someone is a TOD or POD. Transfer on death or payable on death.

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That's fine.

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But it can be in the will. It could be anywhere. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Sure. But you wouldn't want to make them part owner in any way now, because then when you do pass that that increase, hopefully. By the way, I just looked. My home's down five percent from where I bought it two years ago. You can't real estate can't go down, can it?

SPEAKER_05 19:03

Real real estate? I think I guess it's a good thing. We've kind of talked about that in the past where people say real estate can't go down. Yeah, it can go down. Yeah. And it has gone down. And apparently in Tom's case, it is. It is it has been falling down.

SPEAKER_02 19:21

I just saw a video on Instagram that says I'm in the one of the five areas in Washington State that's had the worst real estate appreciation over the last few years. So Duvall? Yes. Hard to believe. There's only like four homes there, so it's hard to believe that it would have much impact.

SPEAKER_05 19:35

I didn't even, yeah, I didn't even know people paid attention.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

They don't, actually. So Kat, so your question, yes. Um I would simply I think you said TOD. I think that's right, in your will. And and so still yours, but then when you pass, it goes straight on, and then there's a step up in the cost basis, which is

Nest Egg Fryers

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the tax issue. So you know something that I did see that was not lovely over the weekend. God, I hate reading this stuff. You know, I just it gives me hives. Um there was an article called Five Easy Ways.

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Five Easy Pieces.

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Five Easy Pieces. Five Easy Ways People Fry Their Nest egg.

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Oh, I love the play on words. They fry the nest egg sort of thing. Yeah, that's clever.

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They said uh number one was avoiding LTC plan.

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Sounds like clickbait to me.

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Oh, I I it very clearly was. Avoiding LTC planning.

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Okay, yeah.

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Okay.

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Yeah, you've got to think about it at least. Even if you can't afford insurance, and by the way, you know, these articles like notice. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

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This one was uh selling LTC product, of course. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_05 20:41

Yeah. They're telling you to go get a uh a a hybrid policy. You get the hybrid policies, read the policy very carefully. You'll see I I saw one, and this is not indicative of all of them, but I saw one where you had you you got all this life insurance that you really didn't need, and the the LTC benefit was $100 a day up to a max that was very low, if I remember correctly. So it really didn't pay much for that.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

If you pay me that, you can stay in my garage. I mean $100. Anyway. Um as you come over and empty the bedpan. Number two. This is number two. Uh you know, uh they write this with a straight face? Ignoring alternative investments, such as fine art.

SPEAKER_05 21:26

Oh, give me a break. Uh that's an investment?

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Yeah. Well, real estate, the uh passive real estate, because you know you're gonna be able to do that. Well, we discovered how well that worked for Tom. Uh exactly. Ignoring that's gonna fry your nest egg? No, frying your nest egg would be boiling it in fine art or cryptocurrency.

SPEAKER_05 21:45

Right, exactly. Doing those things is how you fry your nest egg. It's uh And here's the thing about these articles is the these articles um they they seem to be selling. Something without clearly showing what they're selling.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Well, there's not much transparency, right?

SPEAKER_05 22:06

Yeah. I I mean I read I got this article in front of me now, and I'm looking through it, and it says we rely only on vetted sources and credible third party reporting. Huh?

SPEAKER_02 22:17

I don't know which party that is, but it's more like fourth party, I think, in this case. By the way, one of them was well, the other one they meant, one of the uh of the five, the last one, sticking with an old advisor. Now, isn't old advisor.

SPEAKER_05 22:31

And then it's everybody who works with you.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Yeah, I know. No, I ever works with me is like 30. As an old advisor, all the clients who work with you. Oh, I know, but it was sticking with an old advisor. I'm like, well, if it's a good old advisor, like me, yeah, you should stick with me.

SPEAKER_05 22:44

Here's the thing that that if you're with a firm, then there's someone behind the old advisor when they kick the bucket. Like half of Tom's graduating class is done already, apparently.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Please don't say that. There were a lot of people there. Oh, I see.

SPEAKER_05 23:01

This one is pushing advisor.com. Yeah. Yeah.

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Go find yourself a new advisor.

SPEAKER_05 23:06

Yeah, that's pushing advisor.

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Better looking, harder working.

Ads in Disguise

SPEAKER_05 23:10

Oh, and the oh, this one's an interesting one. I didn't even see this. Neglecting an emergency fund?

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:15

Well, but wait, wait, wait. Okay, I get that. But their sec their suggestion for the best emergency front fund? This is a commercial for wealthfront. They're saying wealthfront is currently offering 3.3%.

SPEAKER_02 23:31

I think it's higher than that. Yeah, it wouldn't take it much time to find a better rate than that.

SPEAKER_05 23:36

This is a commit this is an ad in drag.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Exactly. Not very not very good drag either, I gotta say.

SPEAKER_05 23:44

This is just bad. This is just bad.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:49

Yeah, the hybrid policy is from Golden Care.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Of course it is.

SPEAKER_05 23:53

This whole article is an advertisement. Is it what? Wait, does it the Federal Trade Commission?

SPEAKER_02 24:01

I think it just they hide themselves behind, you know, free press links.

SPEAKER_05 24:06

Oh, they do. Oh no, no, they've got a qualifier. They got a qualifier now. This article adheres to strict editorial standards. Wink wink. Some or all links may be monetized.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

So they're making a buck off sending you to Wealthfront. Well, it's better than sending you to Robinhood, I guess I should be happy about that.

SPEAKER_05 24:31

Exactly. Exactly. Golden Care, Wealthfront, uh arrived, a real estate platform.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

That's the one that wants to sell you part ownership of uh vacation places, I think, or some wacky thing.

SPEAKER_05 24:46

Yeah, they got this is yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:49

One big stinking pile of advertising for your benefit or not.

SPEAKER_05 24:55

Well, that ends the uh this reading of financial physics, our questions, our uh supplemental topic, and all the fun stuff that we try to bring you every day on talking real money.

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Once every dollar had a genius attached to it, a name on the door, a corner office, a man who read the tape. He came down from the mountain with a list, and the list had twelve names on it. We paid him Oh, we paid him gladly one percent, two percent, whatever it took. Because how could it be otherwise? How could smart not be dumb? How could trying not beat Sitting still? He was on the cover in a good suit. He had a nickname, he had a streak, he had a war story, and every quarter the letter came explaining. Always explaining why this year was the year that didn't count. When somebody actually looked, somebody sat down and added it up. Twenty years of it, all of it, every fun. And the whole room went very quiet. Nobody's wearing anything. Nobody ever was There are too many eyes on the same street to fool. Too many minds on the very same page. The one thing you can know For certain is the price. Ten years out, most of them lose. Twenty years out, damn near all of them. And handful still standing at the end. Look exactly like what luck looks like. Exactly like what luck looks like. Ten thousand people in a field. Tell them all to flip a coin. Send home everyone who flips tails. Then do it again and again and again. Someone is still standing. Someone who's always still standing. Give him a magazine cover. Give him a fun. Give him your money. He is not a genius. He is the last one holding a coin. Nobody's wearing anything. Nobody ever was There are too many eyes on the same street to fool. Too many lines on the very same page. The one thing you can know for certain is the price. So on the whole street, on every window on it. Almost nothing and never look away. Stop hunting for the man who knows. There is no man who knows. There was never a man who knows. Fees matter more than brain. Nobody's wearing anything. Nobody.

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