Professional Biography
Ed Green, CFP®, ChFC, AIF®, is a Partner at Foster Group. Ed joined the firm in 1999 and has practiced in the financial services industry since 1987.
Ed held NASD (now FINRA) Series 6, 63 and 7 registrations, as well as Iowa insurance and annuity licenses, prior to joining Foster Group’s fee-only practice. He earned the Chartered Financial Consultant (ChFC) designation in 2001, the Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) designation in 2006, and the Accredited Investment Fiduciary (AIF®) designation in 2007.
Ed leads our Portfolio Management team and chairs Foster Group’s Investment Committee.
Personal Thoughts
My wife, Kem, and I were married in 1985. Our son, J.D., was born in 1990 and our daughter, Emily, in 1993. Our two Golden Retrievers, Rocky and Charlie, joined the family in 2006 and now pretty much run the show!
Outside Foster Group, I’ve enjoyed being involved with audio engineering (that’s the guy who stands behind the mixing console and makes it sound good or bad), primarily in the church environment, for over thirty years. I thoroughly enjoy being involved with music production and engaging with talented musicians as well as the “technical gear.” I also enjoy spending time outside doing lawn care and flower gardening at home.
Professionally, my passion and fascination is the continual development and implementation of the portfolio structure used in managing assets for our clients. My primary areas of responsibility are to continually incorporate the leading edge of academic research into our portfolio construction and management methods and to develop written and recorded communications for our clients, including our quarterly audio updates.
It’s sad, but true, that our industry is guilty of making things unnecessarily complex. Whether this is unintentional or by design is open to debate, but either way, it results in investors who are rightfully confused with, and frustrated by, the complexity. To that point, one of the most brilliant minds of our time, Albert Einstein, was quoted as saying, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” I try (unsuccessfully at times!) to live by those words whenever I’m talking with clients or to groups about our investment philosophy. If it can’t be explained at a high level in five minutes and easily understood, your warning lights should begin flashing!
For investors wanting to learn a bit more about how things really work (as opposed to the way they’ve been told it works, or would like to think it works), two books I highly recommend are “Winning the Loser’s Game,” by Charles Ellis and “The Unbeatable Market,” by Ron Ross. Another interesting read, with a little different twist, is “Your Money & Your Brain,” by Jason Zweig; a fascinating look at how our brains can get in the way of being successful as investors.
Blog Posts By Ed Green
| Date | Title |
|---|---|
| 8/4/2011 | Volatility ? - Exceptional but Normal! |
| 7/25/2011 | Do The Math |
| 3/22/2011 | Thoughts on the Disaster in Japan |
