Is the advice in this video sound?

Question

I know nothing about investing. Was watching this video:
[redacted]
The man spends the first half of the video ridiculing people who state that you can't beat the market. As an example, he uses himself, and shows us numbers about how he beat the S&P500 .... by 1 percent point.
He then spends the next half of the video selling his products and telling us to pay for investment advice.
But beating the market by the small margin really doesn't sound all that impressive to me, considering how much you put into it. If you invest, say, 100.000 dollars, 1 % is 1000 extra dollars per year. That's good money, but is it really worth it if you only get it by investing in some expensive managed fund or paying an investment advisor? Seems like it would cancel out to me. The percentages might matter more if you were investing, say, 10 million dollars, but that's not applicable to most people....
Besides, his evidence is anecdotal anyways. Just because HE beat the market, doesn't mean anyone else will. So if he, who seems like a really smart finance guy, only beat the market by 1 %, I would suspect an ordinary citizen might completely fail at beating the market even if they followed his advice.
I am NOT asking whether you CAN or CAN'T beat the market. I am purely asking whether the arguments listed in the video are sound, or whether my critique of them is accurate. I just had these thoughts as a guy with no idea about finance, and would like to know if my line of thinking is off, or if I should be more open to this guy's advice.

Daniel K · Answer

This applies to anyone trying to sell investing advice, not this guy specifically: What does he get out of selling you the advice? That is, it takes time/effort/money for him to make these products. So why is he spending his time trying to sell you advice, rather than spending all of his time picking stocks? The answer can only be: he thinks that he can make more money by selling you his advice than he can by following his own advice. That should tell you everything you need to know.

Answered by Daniel K on April 29, 2021

Bob Baerker · Answer

Over the past three decades plus I have seen a parade of mutual funds as well as newsletter writers who had a hot streak, attracted investors and then their subsequent picks went into the crapper.
Anyone remember Abby Joseph Cohen who  famously  predicted the 1990's bull market and then was bullish as the market fell in 2000 and then again in late 2007 when she predicted a big S&P 500 rally in 2008? History is littered with the short term successes of purveyors of advice.
I listened to about 2 minutes of your linked video and then (yawn), turned it off.  The first statement that struck me was "I have millions of dollars in mutual funds."  And how much of that came from selling books, newsletters, seminars, and management fees?  The other one was "I bought four  funds that outperformed the S&P 500." Well geez, a lot of people do that by dumb luck.  Four funds??  Really? Four?  And by 1 percent?  Really? That's impressive?
If Ramsay had any real money management skills, he'd have billions of dollars being thrown at him and he'd be running his own hedge fund rather than hawking his products.
I don't know what Ramsay charges.  Most managed money costs between one and two percent.  If he's  beating the market by one percent, at best it's a tie, perhaps even worse than market performance.
Ramsay may have some good advice in his books.  Buy one.  If the content is worthwhile, buy some more.  That's always worth it.
The real performance here is Ramsay.  He's selling his words for a fee and that amounts to a very nice lifetime annuity.

Is the advice in this video sound?

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