Blodgett Slams Mutual Funds as 'A Rip-Off'

Henry Blodgett—the former Merrill Lynch analyst who the SEC fined $4 million and banned from the brokerage industry for having touted the investment bank’s technology clients—is back with a book warning investors about ruses in the industry, Bloomberg reports.

In describing his new book, “The Wall Street Self-Defense Manual: A Consumer’s Guide to Intelligent Investing,” Blodgett says that most humans cannot beat the market.

He even goes so far as to call stock analysis “a waste of time and money” and calls most mutual funds “a rip-off” that get away with charging high fees that erode returns.

“The primary source of a mutual fund’s return is the market, not the fund, and the average fund subtracts more value than it adds,” he says.

He recommends that investors hold onto real estate and invest in index funds.

Blodgett also admits he was “disastrously wrong” for not foreseeing the dot-com bust and “wrote a lot of emotional, unprofessional e-mail, especially during the heat of the crash.”