Investing Meetup Report (Part 4)

I left off explaining what the Meetup presenters did that left me wanting.

I just asked whether Dimensional Fund Advisors was a company like Blackrock.

For the record, I am very skeptical about the supposed “DFA advantage” that Dimensional Fund Advisors advertises. It was never my intent to argue about whose funds were better.

Rather than just saying “yes, DFA is another fund company,” they gave me an unnecessary/lackluster attempt at sales. By pooh-poohing DFA out of ignorance, they implied superiority of their product. This certainly doesn’t sound like an objective Fee-Only advisor to me. A Fee-Only advisor should do what is in my best interest and that would require knowing what else is out there! If they were going to deliver a sales pitch then they should have had a politically correct response why Blackrock is as good for me or better than DFA. Their ignorance does not mean theirs is better if they are simply fools.

And their ignorance did suggest to me that they may simply be fools. DFA has been a subject for discussion in Forbes, by CBS, on CNBC and MSNBC: they are world renowned. Their list of “Academic Leaders” (board members) is a veritable Who’s Who of options, investing, and risk analysis: Eugene Fama, Kenneth French, Robert Merton, Myron Scholes, Roger Ibbotson… are you kidding me?! How could our presenters not know about DFA? Despite my skepticism, even I am awestruck by the celebrity of DFA’s board members and the level of “expertise” they represent. To plead ignorance strikes me as utter incompetence on the part of the presenters.

I’ll wrap this up in the next post.