NICE to see that there is some rationality, original thinking, and honesty coming from posters not named Flagpole.
Once again I am handily beating the markets while being essentially all out. Not at all difficult this year.
ghost and agip, I feel for you. Your ability to act and advise is limited by your duties to your clients, which is limited by your knowledge of different investments. You cannot, and do not, advise them on specialized investments that require a great deal of knowledge, and even savvy and salesmanship, yet you sense that these exist, and you wish that you had access to them, either on your own behalf or on that of your clients.
The investments that are yielding at the moment are the ones that you have to work, like coming across soil, you have to clear it, till it, plant it, weed it, maybe fertilize it, and find a market for product. A major key is knowing which soil will be productive in what capacity, and that is what takes background knowledge.
"The markets" do not require that the investor "work" the productive assets; indeed it is impossible to work them, unless you are talking illegal pump-and-dump. In this environment, without work, returns are a crapshoot--and anybody who is diversified will average out to essentially nothing.
I was telling you guys this a long time ago; some understood, some did not want to accept, and some were probably incapable of understanding. Here we are another year later.
Coach d, "buying companies" can work, but like I have just described, to do it properly requires work. The extreme examples of this is, of course, to actually buy a controlling interest and actively manage the business, but in order to do what you are doing, well, also requires work. I assume that you have the time, energy, understanding, and knowledge to make it work for you. The best CFP's should also be able to do this, at least within sectors, but the vast majority do not, because they simply don't have the time and/or ability to drill down far enough. If it's working for you, good stuff.
As for those of you who just do as you are told and hope that things will take care of themselves, good luck. Ever since I have been out, you have missed out on the substantial returns that I have enjoyed. Of course, you have also probably had much more free time than I, and historically that may have been an equitable trade...however, the calculus seems to be inexorably drifting, and not in your favor.