The Two Best Investments for Dentists

This post is the third in a series of five posts that lay out the PFG Investment Philosophy. This describes the two best investments for dentists. Through these posts, we try and lay the foundation of knowledge around investments that clients should know, and answer the most commonly asked questions.

What are the Best Investments for Dentists?

There are two.

First, Invest in Yourself and Your Business

We believe in this key principle of investing in yourself and your ability to earn a good living. We advise young dental school students to finish school; we advise recent grads to get a good job where they can further their skills and to look for a practice to buy or start; and we advise doctors who are in practice to reinvest back in their businesses in the form of advertising, new equipment and continuing education.

But you personally can only do so much. And very quickly (hopefully sooner than later), your ability to pay for self-improvement far exceeds your ability to implement the upgrades. At this point you need to start investing outside of yourself.

Second, Invest in Others’ Businesses – Through Stocks and Bonds

When you’re ready to look outside yourself and your business, we recommend you invest in the best businesses in the world. To do that there are only two ways possible: 1) buy ownership in the companies (stocks) or 2) loan money to them (bonds). And more specifically, to allow us a high level of diversification at a very low cost, we own and loan to these companies through mutual funds.

What’s at the heart of these investments? People and their ability to work and innovate. Regardless of which century we’re in, the country, political party in office, or whether we’re in a time of war or peace, productivity is the driver of all economic progress – human labor and innovation. Productive people organize together to form companies in order to convert labor and innovation into products and services that can be sold for a profit. We invest in those companies.

Investments We Advise Against

Because they are unproductive assets, we never invest in precious metals, commodities or raw land. If you buy a bar of gold, one hundred years from now it will be the same bar of gold having produced nothing in the meantime. The same is true for a bag of wheat or a piece of dirt. But a company will create much profit during that time. It is a productive asset.

We also advise against investing in activities that will take your time, or give you a second career. If you want a second career for the career’s sake, that’s a different story. But if you’re looking for an investment return only, we caution you to stay away from directly buying real estate, franchises, farming or other ventures that will take your time. Dentistry is a very profitable profession; the probability that your time will be more profitable somewhere else is very, very small.

In conclusion we strongly advise, once you’re ready to invest outside of yourself, that you invest in low cost, low turnover, highly diversified stock and bond mutual funds. Our favorites are these (here).