Kaplan Causing Emotional Damage
When I'm too tired to fight back
I’ve been incredibly busy for the past two weeks studying day and night for the Series 7 exam, known as the top-off exam. It’s a brutal exam with a high fail rate that covers an insane amount of material and my exam date is scheduled for 12 days from now! But passing this thing is mandatory to work in the financial industry along with the series 66, so I don’t have any time right now to write for MIXTAPE. I did, however, want to share one hilarious work-related story before I go:
A big part of using Kaplan Series 7 study guides is taking online randomized unit quizzes, unit checkpoint exams, and qBank questions, and one of the questions I got was particularly personal and violent. It read:
You have a customer who thinks he can write a novel. He plans to take two years off from work to do the travel and research necessary. He needs to adjust his investment portfolio to take this new plan into account. What investment objective will best serve his purpose?
A. Current income
B. Conservative growth
C. Preservation of capital
D. Liquidity
The answer, in case you’re curious, is not preservation of capital (i.e., save whatever you’ve earned so the principal doesn’t go down during your “writing” phase) but is actually current income. That answer, of course, makes sense as well, though I’d argue that maintaining principal and switching to dividend ETFs and money market funds probably makes more sense than prioritizing income, which can reduce your principal and therefore, substantially reduce your long-term growth and derail compound interest. But whatever. The real blow-to-the-stomach here is that first line: You have a customer who thinks he can write a novel. I laughed so loud when I read this line that I startled my colleagues. But there it is: a jab in the throat and a quaint reminder that the artist in me will always live in the residence of this body no matter how I make money or train my mind to think like a financial advisor. The artist in me will never die but some of his roommates will wear suits, that’s clear to me.
Have a beautiful Sunday, dear readers!
-ジャクソン | Jackson