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Everyone loves a top 10 list!  This month Matt was asked to create a top 10 list for investors.  Many of you who know him will not be surprised by his answers.

Matt was honored to be featured in a publication like Sophisticated Living that is distributed to over 14,000 affluent Saint Louisans.  Be sure to pick up a copy this month (and check out page 104 where you can read “The 10 Things (Investors) Cannot Live Without”).

You can click the image or click here to read the digital magazine.

This summer we were privileged to work with a young man named Dominic.  He was a huge help around the office and we miss having him here!  Below you can read about his experience in his own words:

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t reluctant to join Hill Investment Group for a summer internship. My background is in public relations, media studies, and writing. I’m not even part of the Business School at Xavier University where I’m entering my junior year. In fact, finance and investing were nowhere to be found on my radar until Rick Hill walked me through a Monte Carlo Simulation during my first week at the office.

But what I found most valuable about my time at Hill Investment Group wasn’t my indirect personal finance lessons from Rick nor the investment lingo that I picked up from John Reagan. As I talk with other college students, I can’t help but notice how ego shapes their opinions about work, specifically internships. So often, the main concern is the title of the position or what type of tasks they’ll be assigned. What I’ve discovered is that valuing learning and opportunity over credit and titles opens the most doors. This was confirmed during my time at Hill.

Instead of looking at this internship as something on top of everything else in my life, I found instead that it complimented aspects of my life that I never thought possible. Because of HIG, I was able to apply the skills I’ve cultivated to a real, professional business. In addition, the HIG team taught me what it means to run a client-centered operation. They instilled in me the value of connecting to clients on a personal level – knowing the names of their kids and where they go to school, asking about family vacations, etc. Such an environment inspired me to implement the same approach into my personal life, as well as my future career.

Hill Investment Group oozes trust and confidence. I sensed this beginning with my first email exchange with John all the way through my last day when I wrote the post you’re reading right now.

As I spent more time with the team, I couldn’t help but notice that the reasons I was drawn to HIG were the same reasons I was drawn to Xavier University: a small group of loyal, purposeful individuals, maximized attention to detail, and a simplified approach to solving problems. But perhaps the most striking feature of HIG is its transparency.

I’ve heard office horror stories warning newbies to keep quiet and never interrupt “the boss.” Such a culture is nonexistent at HIG. Because team communication is so greatly emphasized, it wasn’t rare for a work project discussion to digress into a personal, real-life story. If you don’t think that’s possible or efficient, read Matt’s book Odds On: The Making of an Evidence-Based Investor.

The opportunity to work with HIG was unexpected to say the least, but oddly, it’s the unexpected things that prove to be the most valuable down the road.   I don’t know where I’ll be in one, ten, or twenty years, but the tools that HIG equipped me with have prepared me to take on life with purpose and fortitude.

I’m proud to say that I take the long view.

Our friend, Wendy Cook, recently wrote an article called “Why Even I (Especially I) Need an Investment Advisor”.  We think it’s an excellent explanation of why one should hire a professional to help meet important financial goals.  Please read on for the whole text:

Hire an Adviser or Do It Yourself? If ever there were a promising candidate for a DIY approach, it would be me.

That’s not always been so. When I embarked on my investment journey around 1990, I was just a typical investor about to enjoy a tech-boom-fueled run in the markets. Then, in 1998, I happened to accept a position at Buckingham Asset Management, where I was introduced to a new way to invest. I’d written about healthcare, libraries and pet care products. Why not finance? I knew as much about investing as the next person.

Which is to say, I knew nothing.

In what turned out to be one of the luckiest breaks in my life, I heeded the advice of my new employers and shifted my scattered stocks into a portfolio of Dimensional Fund Advisors funds. I didn’t really know why, but to be a team player, I took a leap of faith.

Then that tech bubble burst and, boy, did I learn fast how lucky I’d been to have placed my blind faith where I did. Not only did I happen to sell at the height of the bubble, but I was relatively protected when it blew up. Plus, I got to do some tax-loss harvesting, so I paid almost no gains on the transformation. Suffice it to say, I’ve never looked back.

Since then, I’ve learned a lot more about the whys and wherefores of my actions. What began as beginner’s luck has matured over the years into the deepest appreciation for the science and wisdom of evidence-based investing. From my personal experience as well as the many tales I’ve been privy to in my day job, I know that, compared to any other strategy … well, there is no comparison.

So these days, I’ve got way more understanding of the science of investing, with way more disciplined decision-making capabilities and way better abilities to spot a financial pig in a poke. I’ve also seen the intricacies of portfolio management first-hand, with sufficient working knowledge to go DIY if I had to – especially with today’s automated robo-advisor services to help with the heavy lifting.

Still, I won’t do that. In fact, the more I learn about investing, the more comfortable I am paying for the advice that I know I still need. Here are a few reasons even a sharpshooter like me should not hit the trails by herself:

Me and My Brain – Knowing about my behavioral biases doesn’t immunize me against them. When the financial you-know-what hits the fan, I value having an evidence-based adviser as my dependable sounding board, to confirm that I’m remaining rational … or to let me know if I’m not.

Me and My Education – Since I first discovered evidence-based investing, that evidence has refused to sit still. If anything, its pace has only quickened as new, seemingly credible possibilities augment existing insights and spur off in intriguing directions. To help separate the substance from the senseless distractions, I collaborate with my adviser (and his advisor community) as I consider what to make of the news. Otherwise, circle back to the first point: My brain is always trying to play expensive tricks on me.

And all this is before we even get to the many second-opinion questions I pepper the guy with, on everything from our estate plans, home mortgage and insurance coverage to whether he happens to know a good criminal lawyer for a friend of mine whose son got in a bit of a tight spot.

Me and My Family – My poor husband. Through vicarious absorption, he’s had to learn way more about investing than he’d probably prefer. But if that proverbial bus were to suddenly call me home (and the way I drive, that’s not such a stretch), I feel so much better knowing that all he has to do on the financial front is to call Phil. I would like my family to miss me for my good company, my good humor, and maybe my good cooking – not for my ability to manage a mean trade sheet.

Me and My Time – Which brings me to my last point. Even if I could do all of the above on my own, my long run as a disciplined evidence-based investor has left me in the fortunate position that I can afford to pay Phil to do it instead. Frankly, I’d rather be writing and leaving the nitty-gritty portfolio management to somebody else. Thanks, Phil!