Wall Street Pro Reveals Why He Ditched Trading for Index Funds

BiggerPockets Money Podcast

BiggerPockets

Investing, Education, Business

4.6 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 27 June 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of the BiggerPockets Money podcast, Mindy and Scott speak with Victor Haghani, a seasoned financial expert whose journey from Wall Street titan to FIRE advocate will transform how you think about wealth building. Victor's path from Salomon Brothers and Long-Term Capital Management to founding Elm Wealth reveals the shocking truth: the complex strategies that made millions on Wall Street pale in comparison to simple index fund investing for achieving financial independence. What We Discuss: Why Victor's billion-dollar trading experience led him to index funds The age-based asset allocation strategy that adapts as you approach FI The psychological traps that derail FIRE journeys (even for Wall Street pros) Practical portfolio management for the path to financial independence And SO much more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	What if one of Wall Street's most legendary risk takers told you that slow and steady actually
0:05.7	wins the race?
0:06.9	Victor Hagani, once at the center of a high-stakes hedge fund, now champions low-cost, long-term
0:14.2	index fund investing.
0:16.1	In this episode, we unpack how he got there and how his hard-earned lessons could protect your fire portfolio
0:23.1	from burning out.
0:29.0	Hello, hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Bigger Pockets Money podcast.
0:32.4	My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me as always is my slow and steady co-host, Scott Trench.
0:37.2	Thanks, Mindy.
0:37.8	Always great to see the expanding portfolio of introductions that you bring to every podcast.
0:43.1	Today we're talking to Victor Hagani, two-time TED Talk presenter who got his start at Solomon Brothers and founder of Elm Wealth, a low-cost ETF management company.
0:52.9	Welcome to Bigger Pockets Money, Victor.
0:55.4	Great to be on. Before we get started talking about index fund investing and long-term diversified
1:00.8	portfolios, I would love to hear just a little bit about your background. What has your
1:06.3	investment journey and your experience with investing been like? So I'm 63 years old and I started working in Wall Street in 1984 after studying finance.
1:16.5	And I started off working in the fixed income area and research.
1:21.8	And then I moved out onto the trading floor and was doing bond trading for my Wall Street career that went through Solomon
1:29.3	Brothers and then into the hedge fund LTCM. So from 1984 until about 1999, I was a bond person.
1:39.3	You know, amazingly, I came to Wall Street and I just wasn't told anything about personal investing. I wasn't taught
1:46.2	anything about personal investing and I didn't know anything about personal investing and I didn't
1:51.4	pay any attention to it. So here I was, you know, like at, I don't know, like kind of at the forefront of
1:56.7	financial innovation, working with Nobel laureates and finance and lots of other smart people.
	...

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