“Investors often compare the stock market to a casino, but that analogy never made sense to me. In an actual casino the house has the edge, so the longer you play, the higher your probability of losing. The stock market is the opposite… the win rate in the stock market increases the longer you play.”

— Ben Carlson

In This Edition

›The Fantasyland Investment

›A Message to the Texas A&M Nursing Graduates

›Truth Teller of the Week: George Sisti

›This Week’s Podcast: DFA, Avantis and Vanguard Results Plus 12 Great Q&A

›From a Listener

I hope you find this week’s podcast of interest. Before answering a dozen new investor questions, I discuss the recent returns of DFA, Avantis and Vanguard traditional and non-traditional index funds.

From Paul

The Fantasyland Investment

One of the greatest services a financial educator can provide is helping investors recognize the difference between an investment and a sales story.

That is one of the reasons I have so much respect for George Sisti. While George may be the least well known of our Truth Tellers, I consider his monthly newsletter to be among the finest available to individual investors. Month after month he quietly reminds readers that successful investing doesn’t require exciting new products—it requires discipline, patience, and a willingness to ignore Wall Street’s latest marketing campaign.

In his June article, “The Fantasyland Investment,” George takes a thoughtful look at one of Wall Street’s most aggressively marketed products: the fixed indexed annuity. Rather than attacking the product emotionally, he carefully explains why investors should look beyond the sales presentation and understand how these investments really work before committing their money.

Three lessons particularly stood out to me.

First, there is no free lunch. Products that promise market-like gains with no downside almost always involve trade-offs, limitations, or costs that are easy to overlook.

Second, complexity often benefits the seller more than the buyer. George reminds us that if a product takes pages of illustrations and lengthy explanations to understand, investors should proceed cautiously.

Finally, buy-and-hold investing remains remarkably difficult to improve upon. Owning diversified, low-cost investments may not sound exciting, but history has repeatedly shown that simplicity is one of an investor’s greatest advantages.

If you know someone considering a fixed indexed annuity, I encourage you to share George’s article. It provides an excellent framework for asking the right questions before signing a contract.

And if the recent market volatility has made you question the wisdom of buy-and-hold investing, do yourself another favor: spend an hour reading George’s last twelve monthly newsletters. They are thoughtful, evidence-based, and consistently remind us that successful investing is usually less about finding the next great product and more about avoiding the next costly mistake.

Financial Education in Action

A Message to the Texas A&M Nursing Graduates

Yesterday I had the privilege of speaking to 89 graduating nursing students at Texas A&M. Before the event, I shipped each of them a copy of We’re Talking Millions! 12 Simple Ways to Supercharge Your Retirement, and I want to say a few words directly to them:

Thanks for joining me yesterday. I want that book to become a lifetime source of your financial future. I hope each one of you will think carefully about the 12 million-dollar decisions—and as I promised, I added one more huge million-dollar decision that isn’t in the book!

Here’s why I love talking with young people who are just starting their careers: they have the one advantage no investor can buy—time. For a young professional putting away $6,000 a year for 40 years, every extra half a percent of return is worth roughly $1.5 million more to spend in retirement or leave to others. Even $100 a month, invested in the S&P 500 from a first paycheck to retirement, has historically grown to about a million dollars—and produced millions more in lifetime distributions.

These 89 new nurses are about to spend their careers taking care of others. My hope is that a few simple decisions, made early, will mean their money quietly takes care of them. If you know a young person starting their first job, you can give them the same head start—We’re Talking Millions is always free at paulmerriman.com/free-books.

Truth Teller of the Week

George Sisti

George Sisti may be the least well known of our Truth Tellers, but Paul considers his monthly newsletter to be among the finest available to individual investors. A fee-only financial planner and longtime advocate for evidence-based investing, George writes with a rare combination of patience and plain talk—no products to sell, no predictions to defend, just a steady case for discipline, diversification, and ignoring Wall Street’s latest marketing campaign.

His June article, “The Fantasyland Investment,” featured above, is a perfect example of why he has earned a place on our Truth Teller roster.

Meet George Sisti

This Week’s Podcast

DFA, Avantis and Vanguard Results Plus 12 Great Q&A

Zan and I are home from a wonderful two weeks sailing the Baltic Sea — Poland, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — and it’s great to be back to work.

Before the Q&A, I take a fresh look at the 12-month returns of our recommended portfolios at Avantis, DFA and Vanguard. Avantis led the pack, averaging 31.1% across the 10 equity asset classes in the Ultimate Buy and Hold, compared to 27.7% at DFA and 26% at Vanguard. I explain why the non-traditional index approach keeps winning — and why next year could look completely different.

I also revisit Ben Carlson’s cautionary tale of the ARK Innovation ETF: a fund that soared, gathered $30 billion, then fell 65% while the S&P 500 gained more than 60%. It’s a powerful reminder of what can happen when investors chase performance.

Then it’s on to your questions — 12 of them — covering the all-value worldwide portfolio, whether small cap value is still worth the ride, money market funds vs. short-term bond funds, micro cap at DFA, moving a Roth to the Four Fund portfolio, and one of my favorites: can you really get rich from investing? (Spoiler: $100 a month can turn into millions.)

One table I walk through — G1B, the S&P 500 vs. small cap value fine-tuning table — is pure gold. Fifty-six years of side-by-side returns, one year at a time. If you only look at one thing this week, make it that.

▶ Listen Now

From a Viewer

“Excellent. I like this new approach. My new money is going into DFIV and AVUV plus a large cap value fund in equal weights. Never heard of Dimensional or Avantis until you folks introduced me to them. Value added right there.”

— Comment on YouTube about the Best-in-Class ETFs 2026 update

Thanks for listening, for sharing this information with others, and for your generous donations. And please keep getting the free We’re Talking Millions link into the hands of people who might be helped.

All the best to you and your family,
Paul Merriman

From Paul Merriman

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Back from the Baltic — and Back to Work