Fame & Fortune: TV's Judge Alex Ferrer
Education is the
key to financial security | | |
| Bankrate: How did
all this shape your own approach to investments? Judge
Alex Ferrer: My personal approach to investments is to put it in the hands
of somebody who knows more than I do. When I try to figure out how to invest my
money, I generally do a pretty lousy job. I took a nice hit with the tech stocks
when they plummeted. It's just not my area. My area is law. So I have a financial
adviser, and I do investments I think are reasonable. I am not averse to risk,
I do take some risk, but I'm not going to go out there and put all my money on
black in Las Vegas.
Bankrate: What is the riskiest investment
you currently have? Judge Alex Ferrer:
Right now my investments are pretty safe. I'm pretty flush in mutual funds. They're
not too risky, except maybe a small cap fund that's a bit more risky than some
of the other funds I have. Bankrate:
Any one investment in particular that's done really well for you?
Judge Alex Ferrer: Recently, I was invested in European
funds, which I don't usually feel comfortable in, because it's a relatively small
sector by comparison. Because the U.S. was not doing so well, was in a tumultuous
time, the European fund took off. That was surprising to me. I used it as a hedge,
and it did better. Bankrate: What
are you teaching your kids about how to handle money? Judge
Alex Ferrer: It's hard, because they're growing up at a point where I'm
making more money. Kids of their generation look at rap stars and think, oh yeah,
money's going to come to me. This guy's a millionaire -- when I'm a millionaire,
I'm going to do this. A lot of kids in their generation are going to be very disappointed
when they realize that doesn't happen to everybody, and they're going to really
have to work hard. I don't teach my children so much about investing. I teach
them about education. I teach them that people who live in this country have one
of the best opportunities in the world. There are people in other countries that
would die to be able to come here and take advantage of the educational opportunities
we have, and so many kids don't take advantage of. They don't go to school, they
drop out of college, there's such a hurry to go out there and make the minimum
wage working at some store. So I teach them to get as much education as they can,
and then once they do that, they'll have the ability to pick and choose the career
they want, and they won't be stuck doing some job they hate because they decided
they wanted to spend more time partying instead of going to school. So I push
them in that direction. I think if you get a solid educational base, financial
security will come. | 
