Eagles Needed Coaching

Eagles Pay The Price Of Not Knowing The Questions To Ask

                                                                   By: Brendan Magee, AIF

All year long Philadelphia Eagles’ players get intense coaching. They get coaching in the offseason on how to train for the rigors of a 16 game season. During the season they get intense coaching on how to beat that week’s opponent. The coaching is intended to increase the players’ awareness as football players. The coaches want the players to more conscious of what’s going on around them on the field as well as what’s going on inside themselves. They get coaching not only on what to do to be successful, but also what not to do.

Unfortunately, what they needed and didn’t get was proper coaching with regards to their investments. Sports Illustrated Mobile recently documented that  three prominent Eagles players like a lot of other unsuspecting investors were victims in an investment scam that is in the multimillion dollar range. This unbelievable tail involves Triton Financial, an Austin, Tx.  based investment firm that hired former Heisman Trophy winners and former NFL players to gain access to professional athletes as well as everyday investors and get them to  turn their investments over to Triton Financial. Triton and their CEO, Kurt Barton, our now facing lawsuits filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission as well the Texas State Securities Board.

Now, the coaching the palyers and everyday investors need would have enabled them to ask the questions needed to stay focused, have clarity, and recognize the warning signs of an investment they should stay away from. They needed someone to help them ask the questions that would have sounded the warning signals and helped them to avoid this scam in the first place. They are not the only ones not getting the coaching they need. Millions of investors everyday are talked into decisions or unknowingly allow things to be done with their money that is not in their best interests. Unfortunately for professional football players, their lives, the good, bad and the ugly are on display for all to see.

Unfortunately for the victims of such scandals the odds are never in their favor in getting their money back. The best thing you can do is try your best avoid such situations. As I stated above the answer lies in asking the right questions. The first question that might have helped is, Can you measure the level of diversification in their portfolio? Another would have been, Have they  gotten a mathematical measurement of risk of your portfolio?

These two questions would have been a major piece of armor in deflecting Triton’s deceptive marketing campaign.  According to Sports Illustrated Mobile, Jeff Blake, a former quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals had e-mailed marketing letters to 102 current and former players boasting about Triton’s 32% returns over the past five years.    

Before investing, these questions would have helped unsuspecting investors as to what the market rates of return were over that period of time. Investors would realize that anything claiming to have outperformed the market would have to carry a high level of risk. The investors would have asked to see what the measurement of risk on the investment was. If all they got back was broad ambiguous answers about risk and not mathematical measurements of risk that would have been a huge red flag. 

Also if they had  known how to measure diversification in their portfolio they would have asked to see how their money would be allocated and diversified amongst capital markets. Again if the response wasn’t in mathematical numbers this would have been another huge red flag.

Lastly, the question that might have saved their bacon would have been, Have they defined their investment philosophy? Before you can believe anybody, you have to figure out what you believe about how the world of investing works and how money should be invested. If the advisor standing before you  doesn’t share your philosophy, run do not walk in the other direction. The victims in this scandal if they asked to hear the philosophy of the Triton Investment firm and Triton couldn’t recite in 30 seconds their philosophy again this would have been a major red flag and a reason not to do business with this firm.

These are just a few of the questions investors need to be asking in order to make sure their investing their money as it should and avoid those looking to take advantage of them.

Brendan Magee is the founder and president of Inevitable Wealth Coaching in Drexel Hill, Pa. With questions, comments, or suggestions call 610-446-4322 or e-mail Brendan@coachgee.com. You can hear him every Sunday at 10:30am on The investor Coach’s Show on am1340 what. Follow him on Facebook at Brendan Magee-Investor Caoach.