Media Contacts:
Kristin Carver Smith
Founder/CEO, The New Fashioned Co.
kristin@thenewfashioned.co
Kathryn Pasche
Director of Publicity & Partnerships
kathryn@thenewfashioned.co
Bio
From when he first began working in the investment industry, Patrick Geddes was fascinated by the concepts, but then observed with frustration how skewed investing has become in favor of the investment industry rather than consumers. He saw from an insider’s perspective how much the industry pushes investments that serve their own interests rather than those of the clients they claim to serve. After working as the Research Director and CFO at Morningstar, the financial research and data firm, and teaching graduate-level portfolio theory at UC Berkeley Extension, he left those roles to create a consumer-first, honesty-based company. Geddes co-founded Aperio Group, a $42 billion investment management firm.
After serving at Aperio for more than 20 years as Chief Investment Officer and then the firm’s only CEO, Patrick left that role in 2021 to enjoy retirement and work on a longtime goal-penning his book, Transparent Investing: How to Play the Stock Market without Getting Played (A Data- Proven, Simple Investing Strategy). In it, he teaches consumers how to rewire their brains, unlearn what they know about investing and become skilled when interacting with the investment industry, all to create a brighter financial future for themselves. Patrick’s work and expertise has been featured in The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, Money Magazine, The Journal of Investment Management, and Financial Analysts Journal, among others.
Making Investing More Fun
And Less Intimidating
Ever wish someone would explain the basics of investing (and the psychology behind our investing behavior) in layperson’s terms? Here’s one better—entertaining videos, sketches, musical numbers and more to help you learn about investing and understand why your brain is drawn to certain promises, outcomes and scenarios.
Since learning about investing can be tedious for many folks, the following videos use music, magic, or humor to illustrate particular issues or challenges raised in the book Transparent Investing. Each one helps explain one particular concept.
Active Investing and Magic Tricks
|
A magician explains with some sleight of hand how our brains process illusions in both magic shows and active investing. |
|
A young couple with very different investing styles learn about the best and worst strategies through a rap battle between active and indexing. |
The Honest Investment Ad You’ll Never See
|
What if investment firms advertising active management were required to include full disclosure of the historically low success rate of active versus indexing? If the same rules from pharmaceutical advertising applied to active stock pickers, here's what a fully honest ad might sound like. |
|
What if the debate between active and indexed stock investing were a Broadway musical about competing gangs, like West Side Story? Whether sung, read, or spoken, the data overwhelmingly support indexing for long holding periods. |
Should You Hire An Advisor
Or Do It Yourself?
|
When investment advisors try to counsel investors and keep them from their worst behavioral biases, then they can add genuine value. However, when advisors try to pretend that they’re wizards who can see into the future by picking active managers who will beat the market, then they become, as the Scarecrow would say, humbugs. |
The Scourge of Hidden Fees
| Many investments include hidden fees that financial firms often hope you ignore since they don't want you to understand how you end up with less money. |
Control the Controllable
 |
A key to great investment decisions lies in distinguishing between what you can control and what is random. Hear a hipster performer in a nightclub describe the difference between the two and how to filter out sales hype. |
Love Song:
The Seduction of Active Investing
|
As investors, our brains are hard-wired to be inclined to believe that we or those we hire can predict what are in fact random events, a bias known as the Illusion of Control. It makes us easily seduced by the pitches from active stock managers, as shown in this love song parody. |
Do Nothing
|
Because of how our brains are wired, as investors we assume that we should constantly be tweaking our portfolios, even though research has shown how harmful that approach can be. Hear a squirrel explain how doing nothing frequently offers the best path to wealth. |
Links to Press
Transparent Investing: The Book
The big secret hidden inside the book is this: there isn’t a secret formula to “beat the market.”
But that’s not exactly a popular message with investment advisors.
That’s because they make more money when you believe you can outsmart the system.
And yeah, your brain is wired to crave that thrill.
Just as your brain is wired through evolution to crave the foods that aren’t exactly great for your body.
Sexy, glamorous, market-beating investing is like chocolate cake.
It feeds your craving to make a killing.
Transparent Investing offers up a healthier investment fare, like broccoli.
It sounds a little bland, but it’s a lot healthier for a financial future than cake.
It’s not that all complicated investment strategies are bad, but rather that simple is so terrific.
This book gives you the equivalent of a nutritional guide for healthy, long-term investments: Tools on how to spot your own biases, how to spot the ones from the investment industry, and how to invest in simple steps to either do it yourself or find the right kind of advisor.
(You ain’t going to find that in just any dusty investment book.)
