Wall Street star Josh Brown shares his investment secrets in a new Reuters book

By Chris Taylor

NEW YORK – If you’ve followed the financial markets at all in the past 15 years, you probably know “Downtown” Josh Brown.

The author of The Reformed Broker, one of the most widely read financial blogs in the world, has gained millions of followers for his encouraging style that pulled back the curtains on Wall Street.

Now, his new book, You Didn’t See This: Secrets Every Investor Should Know, brings together insights from those years and offers fresh commentary through the lens of 2024.

“What I wanted to do was put a capper on the whole ‘Reformed Broker’ era,” says Brown, who now shares his investment thoughts at . “Let’s take the more evergreen ideas from those 15 years, see what has changed and what investors can learn.”

It’s a tricky balancing act, as Brown not only likes to expose the underside of Wall Street, but also helps run billions of dollars as CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management and star of the popular “Midtime Report” of CNBC.

Here he shares three ways to protect your financial interests and avoid getting eaten by sharks:

BE CAREFUL HOW YOUR ADVISOR IS PAID

“If someone is getting paid up front for selling you something expensive, the bottom line is very likely to be poor,” he says. “The sooner you can get rid of someone who’s charging you a lot for a transactional product, the better off you’ll be.”

The reason: If a financial salesperson gets, say, 10 percent on a deal, the reason is because that person “knows this is the last time you’re going to work with them,” Brown says.

Whereas when an advisor steers you toward investments with extremely modest fees, such as exchange-traded funds, they are more likely to be looking to build longer-term relationships with better results.

DON’T BE DECEIVED BY THE ONE-HIT WONDER

If a prominent investor makes a great deal, does that mean he or she will be right about other things, too? Absolutely not.

“There tends to be a deification of investors who made a good call or were right about a bull or bear market,” says Brown. “But watching what happens after that is very instructive. The history of Wall Street is full of examples of one-hit wonders.”

It is possible that the nature of the financial media promotes superstar fund managers to help boost ratings. But the idea that an investor who is right about one thing will be right forever is “the one thing that individual investors consistently get wrong,” he says.

JUST OWN THE ROBOTS

One of Brown’s most popular posts of all time was in 2017 — and if you’d listened to his advice back then, you’d be very rich indeed.

He ruminated on the rise of artificial intelligence and people’s anxiety that it will come for our jobs. The cold reality is that it may indeed be true for many. But investors have agency here: you can buy shares in companies and technologies related to the artificial intelligence industry.

If you bought a bunch of Nvidia (NASDAQ: ) in 2017, for example — well, you shouldn’t worry so much about your salaried job.

“He was remarkably prescient, and those ideas have become more resonant in the years since,” says Brown. “If you can’t beat them, join them. You might as well have a stake in the companies that are trying to eliminate your own utility.”

Next up for Brown: perhaps a stab at historical fiction, an idea he’s entertained for some time, to bring to life some of the wilder stories in Wall Street history.

As for the current book, Brown says investors shouldn’t expect the dry approach of user manuals.

“I wrote the book in such a way to connect personally with readers, take investment ideas and make people feel the emotions behind them,” he says. “I tried to take all these complex things and humanize them — and if the book is successful, that’s why.”