Finance

Teaching People to Fish

Five years past the financial meltdown of 2008, dubbed “The Great Recession,” the small investor still does not trust Wall Street. According to a 2013 report, issued in the fall by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) of Washington, D.C., that distrust doesn’t simply exist – it grew at a healthy pace and still maintains an active presence. The AEI report cited several recent polls from Harris Interactive, The Atlantic and the Aspen Institute. Using the same survey as it has for the past 23 years, Harris found that in 2007, only 30 percent of respondents indicated little or no confidence in the financial industry. Just two years later in 2009, when the effects of the 2008 meltdown had yet to subside, that number doubled, climbing to a startling 60 percent. Three years later in 2012, those expressing little or no confidence dropped by a less-than-comforting nine percentage points to 51 percent.

Public distrust at first glance might not appear to benefit financial advisers. Yet for Mario Romano, co-founder and CEO of Wealth Engineering, LLC based in Tinton Falls, NJ, it has transformed into monetary self-actualization not only for Romano, but also for clients utilizing the system, uniquely designed to aid self-directed investors.

“After spending 30 years on Wall Street, I knew there was a huge void for the ‘small investor,’” said Romano. “Financial institutions do not necessarily have the best interest of the client in mind at all times. People want to start learning how to manage a portion of their own capital.”

A desire to help people do just that is what prompted Romano to establish Wealth Engineering in 2005. Completely online, the firm specializes in investor education and strategic trading processes. Back in 2002, he asked Annette Raynor, a financial IT expert, to analyze a software program monitoring the cash flow of publicly-traded companies. In doing so, she advised Romano of the enormous potential for an efficient tool the general public could use to manage investments.

Romano heeded Raynor's advice, and they co-founded Wealth Engineering. The software program became the framework for an online financial education platform owned by what is now a publicly traded company: Investview Inc.  (INVU) Romano’s firm became a marketer for the company’s services and brokered a deal  for the company with Questrade, a Canadian discount brokerage firm and Raynor worked with the firm as an education Coach for their Core Investing room and assisted the company in bringing their 7 Minute Investor portfolio product to market.
Partnering with Chad Miller and Ryan Smith, both of whom are pioneers of the online financial education sector and managing members of CR Capital Holdings, LLC of Farmington, UT in March of 2013, Romano launched a new online financial services platform, called Wealth Generators. A few months later, in November, Investview became a distributor for Wealth Generators. The Wealth Generators platform does much more than analyze stock performance and provide trade alerts. It also helps investors earn income by referring others.

“Wealth Generators takes the complexity out of the stock market because it offers strategies designed and managed by their Market Experts,” Romano said. “Each member is provided the knowledge and trade details created by the Market Expert. The best way to learn is through application and that is exactly what Wealth Generators does. It educates each individual on the various strategies but even more important it applies the education through ongoing trade alerts that take a strategy from start to finish.”

To Romano’s way of thinking, the focus on individual education is a key component. He believes it empowers the individual investor – whether big or small in terms of dollars – to leave behind the distrust of previous financial experiences and the fatigue brought on from worrying about future impacts. By completing the educational videos and then following and executing the trade strategies, each individual gains the confidence they need to better approach their investment capital.

“Wealth Generators is seeking to change the public’s perception that a small individual investor cannot manage his own portfolio,” Romano said.

The system’s users vary from 18-year-old's with starter jobs learning the first basics of money management to the mid-lifer trying to maximize income sources during working years to the retiree mastering the art of managing a nest egg. It also provides those with limited or no working capital an opportunity to bolster their resources via referral generation through the system’s network marketing model. This gives users two methods to increase cash flow each week: first via regular market trading and second by bringing other individual investors online.

Wealth Generators utilizes the services of market experts such as Corey Halliday, a coach and instructor with Investview, to advise platform users regarding financial choices they believe might be the most prudent under current market conditions. What the platform coach experts do not do is to tell a user which specific trade to make or not to make. “This,” Romano said, “differs from the traditional client/adviser relationship in that platform users make the trade decision for themselves but with the added benefit of the Market Expert as a coach.”

“Two analogies that I quite often tell people are: if Tiger Woods walked up to you on the green and said your feet are spread too far apart while you are putting, would you not narrow your stance?” Romano explained. “If Peyton Manning was teaching your son how to throw a football and he told your son to step into his throws instead of throwing off his back foot, would you not expect your son to start stepping into his throws?” Wealth Generators and their Market Experts function as a financial coach.  Imagine what you would have to pay for the services of a private coach.  The Wealth Generators system is affordable enabling everyone access and the ability to take their financial future into their own hands.

Perhaps the question closer to home for Romano could be posed in this manner: Are you as a small individual investor, going to listen to advice from a guy who spent more than three decades working on Wall Street and who believes the system is broken? If the answer is yes, then tune Romano in. He started at Lehman Brothers in 1982 while attending college at St. John’s University. After, graduating in 1987, he worked as an assistant to several brokers, formed his own company, Romano Enterprises LLC, in 2000. That firm – an equity hedge fund dedicated to the needs of individual investors – was in some respects a forerunner to Wealth Generators. Romano believes the biggest take away from his Wall Street experience is the lack of trading expertise by the majority of brokers.  In the past brokers were taught to be salespeople not necessarily successful investors.  The brokers’ objective is to earn a commission while the investor’s objective is to make money.  As long as these objectives remain mismatched we will continue to see distrust of Wall Street increase. 

Individuals can be educated and they can apply this knowledge with the proper coaching along the way. Wealth Generators offers a platform that accomplishes this along with a commitment to transparency and compliance as evidenced by the fact that each one of the trade strategies includes full historical trade performance including entry, exit, adjustments and final returns.
“My goal for 2014 is to create financial independence for all,” Romano said. “If done right, we will teach people a skill for life.”

Learn more about Wealth Generators online at www.wealthgenerators.com

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