What Happened With Fisher Investments? Past Allegations, Explained
Ken Fisher of Fisher Investments has a history of controversy. Here's the rundown, including where the billionaire investor and Fisher Investments stand today.
June 15 2022, Published 11:43 a.m. ET
Recently, Ken Fisher, a billionaire investor and founder of Fisher Investments, spoke on Fox News about the bear market, which he likened to a “ghostbuster” environment that no one can escape. Today, Fisher Investments remains fully operational and specializes in portfolio management and more. However, the firm has a history of alleged controversies.
Here’s what happened with Fisher Investments and where the firm — and its billionaire founder — are today.
Ken Fisher’s net worth puts him in billionaire territory.
Fisher has a reported net worth of $4.5 billion as of mid-June. Fisher founded his eponymous investment firm in 1979 with just $250 and grew his assets under management to $159 billion by the end of 2020.
Fisher is also an author (he published his latest book, Beat the Crowd: How You Can Out-Invest the Herd by Thinking Differently, in 2015). He notoriously called high school a “waste of time” and dropped out of his own high school to skip ahead and pursue college classes at Humboldt State University.
Ken Fisher
Founder and chairman of Fisher Investments
Net worth: $4.5 billion
Ken Fisher is at the helm of Fisher Investments as the founder and chairman. Fisher Investments has multiple past controversies, but the most noteworthy is Ken Fisher's sexist comments about a woman's genitalia at an industry conference in 2019. Despite funds pulling out billions of dollars from Fisher Investments at the time, the firm lives on and continues to grow.
Birthdate: November 29, 1950
Birthplace: San Francisco
Education: High-school dropout, BA from Humboldt State University
Wife: Sherrilyn Fisher
Children: 3
There are alleged controversies in Fisher Investments’ history.
In 2021, investors hit Fisher Investments with a class-action lawsuit over alleged unsolicited cold calling. The lawsuit claimed the firm violated rules according to the National Do Not Call Registry and Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
That same year, an elder accused Fisher Investment advisers of mismanaging their account and racking up a tax bill reaching nearly $1 million. The involved parties settled in arbitration.
Fisher himself made sexist remarks in 2019 at an industry conference and Fisher faced backlash for it. At the time, the Texas state pension fund pulled $350 million from Fisher Investments and said, “With respect to our fiduciary duty, we are defunding Fisher Investments.” By late October 2021, pension funds across the U.S. pulled $3.1 billion from Fisher Investments. “Fisher’s words reach millions and only do damage,” Brian Pendleton, now Los Angeles City Commissioner, said at the time.
Ken Fisher commented on bear market investments.
Fisher spoke on Fox News in mid-June to discuss the Federal Reserve’s latest policy and the bear market. Fisher said about interest rate hikes, “If the notion is to make everybody feel better, you’ve gotta kneecap them and put them on the ground so they can rest, that’ll scare them. People don’t like to be kneecapped.”
He also said, “Sometimes, we don’t have capitulation with the bottom and I am increasingly coming to the view that we won’t have capitulation.” Capitulation is the point where investors give up and sell at a loss.
Fisher said his expected lack of capitulation is “partly because everybody’s looking for it but partly because I think this is what I call a ghostbuster’s market in that you can’t go anywhere. If you think about it, long bonds are negative in this period, inflation’s up, you’re gonna go to cash, you’re gonna go to bonds. Gold hasn’t had any glitter and you really don’t want to go into real estate because it’s been so pricey.”