Why Choose Us

Why you should turn to us for investment management.

Meixler Investment Management, Ltd. was founded on the premise that most investment recommendations mass-marketed to individual investors are inappropriate, opportunistic and structured to maximize profits for the company selling them.

With our investment management firm, you will find a better way to build wealth over the long term.

The danger of mutual funds

The majority of retail customer investment assets are held in mutual funds despite overlap, high expense, and lack of customization. Mutual funds have also provided poor performance over the long term, and this fact can be easily obscured. A mutual fund investment gives the appearance of growth and can lead the investor to the false belief that they are taking part in responsible investment — but every investor in a mutual fund owns the same portfolio, and the danger is that the investment can be inappropriate while appearing to the investor as “safe and diversified.”

Actively managed equity mutual funds charge investors an average of 1.4% per year in expenses. That figure does not include any sales loads or transaction fees that may be incurred, and many brokers charge their own management and account fees on top of the management fee for the fund. This can add up very quickly. Some funds have upfront loads of as much as 8.5%, so investors have dug themselves a deep hole even before their investment has had a chance to earn a return. Paying high fees could pay off if the performance of these funds was strong, but statistics show that over the long term about 80% of mutual funds trail the market benchmark index.

It has also been shown that an investor who bought shares in the mutual fund company itself would have made more than an investor who invested in that company’s funds. That should be glaring proof that these companies are rarely putting clients’ interests ahead of their own.

Stockbrokers (now called financial advisors)

Finding an advisor who knows you personally can eliminate the problem mutual fund investors face: lacking a personalized investment strategy. Brokers can customize a portfolio for your specific goals, but wirehouses often lack flexibility in what securities the representative can offer. Individual stock picks, for instance, are considered not highly profitable for larger firms.

Of the three mutual fund pitfalls highlighted above — lack of personalization, high expenses, and poor performance — only the first is solved by going the broker route. Full-service brokerage firms charge very high fees, and research shows their analysts are no better at picking stocks than monkeys throwing darts at the Wall Street Journal stock table. Why pay high fees for their recommendations?

Index funds

When trust is running thin and conflicts of interest abound, why not just buy the entire stock market? On the surface, index funds appear quite attractive. It is true that the broad stock market indices have averaged returns of 10–11% per year since the 1800s. However, since no investor invests for that long, we should look at the various market cycles that have occurred over time.

1929–1954: The market peaked in 1929 and did not reach that level again for 25 years.
1926–1976: The market returned an average of 3.5% per year over a 50-year period.
1982–1999: The market averaged 19% annual returns with only one negative year.
2000–2009: The market ended the decade lower than where it began.

“The market” refers to the S&P 500 Index, except for years before its creation, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average is used.

As you can see, index funds can produce disappointing returns unless the stock market is booming. The fact is, if you are tracking the index and paying fees, you are basically consistently underperforming the market. Index funds work when most stocks are rising, but investors relying on such an environment will need to be very lucky in their timing and could very well be disappointed over the course of one or two decades.

How we are different

Meixler Investment Management, Ltd. was founded as a better alternative to mutual funds, indexing and stockbrokers. For mutual fund investors and those who use stockbrokers, it is a tough task to earn above-average investment returns. The combination of high expenses and commissions with average — at best — investment recommendations makes it nearly impossible to beat the S&P 500 Index.

Since our portfolio management fees are calculated as a percentage of your investment assets, we have incentive to make you money — not to simply buy and sell many times over to generate commissions, or to select certain products. We trade to make money for our clients and for no other reason.

Disclosures

As an investment adviser registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, we are required to file and provide clients with updated copies of our disclosure documents on an annual basis. Please see our most updated Form CRS. This keeps our clients apprised of changes made to Meixler Investment Management’s Form CRS.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your interest in our firm, and we look forward to hearing from you.

Mike Meixler

Chief Compliance Officer

View Form CRS SEC Adviser Report

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