Technology only takes you so far in investing

When my sons were young, our family went on a number of long road trips. Back then, my wife and I were big fans of the road atlas. Now that we’re empty nesters, we fly more often than drive.

After years of frustration with the airlines, however, we decided to drive on our most recent trip. With our trusty GPS, we just had to key the address into the touchscreen and follow the instructions.

The friendly voice would always tell us what to do. If we had an upcoming turn, a pleasant woman’s voice would instruct us to turn left in one-half mile. Even with the instructions I would occasionally make a mistake; but when I did, there was no criticism. The nice woman’s voice would say, “recalculate” and get us back on track without a trace of judgment.

I’m definitely impressed with the technology of the GPS. But on the return home, if I had followed its instructions, we would have gone through downtown Chicago at the peak of rush hour. Following the instructions would have been a mistake.

While the GPS could calculate the quickest route, it didn’t take into calculation the time of day I would pass through the Windy City. Nor did it know anything about me. For example, the GPS didn’t know if I had vision issues at night.

At that point it occurred to me that, as wonderful as the GPS technology may be, we should never ignore the human element and depend totally on technology.

I bring this up in a financial column because I fear that far too many investors are doing themselves a disservice by being overly dependent on technology when they plan the course of their investments. They’re overlooking the human element.

For example, there are a number of software programs that, if you input your birthdate and risk tolerance, answer a few questions and provide a financial goal, the program will lay out an entire financial strategy.

In other words, financial planning and investing is becoming eerily similar to my car’s GPS. Plug in what you want and technology will instruct you how to get to your destination.

Yes, much of the technology is extremely helpful, but as with a car’s GPS, computers lack the very important human element that advisers can bring to the table. By that, I mean the professional relationship between you and your financial adviser.

A good adviser will be aware of the human side of the planning process. For example, is there a child or grandchild with special needs? Are you worried about one of your children blowing through their inheritance? Are you or your spouse facing a large medical bill or is senior housing on the horizon?
Whenever the situation dictates, I believe a human can relate to your loved ones much better than a computer program. And from a purely investment standpoint, study after study shows that investors who work with an adviser tend to have better investment performance. Probably because advisers help investors keep their emotions out of their investments and keep them calm in difficult times.
Technology is great, but it shouldn’t replace the human element. Otherwise you might find your investments stuck in the Chicago rush hour traffic with your GPS muttering an apology.