Investment falsehoods warning sounded by Hall at RCF
A standout kicker for University of Tennesse Vols, helping his team win a national championship in 1998, Jeff Hall found a new calling after a brief period of professional football.
These days, this Farragut resident and Winchester native helps others meet their financial goals as a partner/senior advisor with Rather & Kittrell. During a meeting with The Rotary Club of Farragut in Fox Den Country Club Wednesday, Dec. 18, he shared insights about investing.
“There are things that matter, and then there are things you can control, and what we need to focus on is where those two overlap,” he said. “That’s what makes life full and blessed is finding those things that do overlap and pulling your time and energy into whatever those are.”
However, there are misconceptions that could affect people’s financial wealth.
One of those misconceptions is “someone knows the secret.”
“Nope,” Hall responded. “$800 billion of trading and transactions go on everyday in the capital market. No one knows what’s going to happen.
“There’s no discernable trend,” he added. “There’s no way to predict what’s going to happen next.”
Also, “just because someone’s the smartest person in the room, it doesn’t mean you should listen to him about finances,” Hall said.
A second misconception is “invest money based on politics.” He observed, “The market doesn’t care … because there are so many influences on the stock market.”
Another misconception is more effort equals better results.
“Money is like soap: the more you handle it, the more it disappears,” Hall said, adding he observed dormant accounts had better returns than overly managed ones.
“Jeff’s finance career began in 1999, after a successful four years as a student athlete at the University of Tennessee” and a stint in the NFL, RCF president-elect Candace Viox said in her introduction of Hall. “Jeff will be the first to tell you that success in one area of life does not automatically translate to success elsewhere.”
“Three years, almost to the day, that we won that national championship game, I had to make, probably, one of the most difficult phone calls I ever had to make,” he recalled. He had to call his parents and ask for $500 to pay his bills.
“So, I went from a guy who’s ‘the world is your oyster,’ everything right there in front of me, to the next three years just made some pretty silly decisions,” Hall added.
However, he had the good fortune of being hired in 2002 by Lyle Rather and Chris Kittrell as the first employee at the Farragut firm, Rather & Kittrell. “Since that moment, Jeff has dedicated his professional career to helping others have peace of mind about their finances through good stewardship, giving and thoughtful wealth transfer planning,” Viox said.
In 2011, Hall became a partner at Rather & Kittrell and solidified a successional plan for the firm.
He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration, with a major in marketing and minor in speech communications from UT.
Hall’s pursuit of life-long learning and technical proficiency led him to earn the Certified Financial Planner certification, Certified Financial Management Analyst certification from Wharton School of Business in University of Pennsylvania, and a certified Kingdom Advisor designation from Kingdom Advisors.
(Headline updated)
