David Harkin

Dad got me investing at age 13 (1984) in Wal-Mart back when it was a small company.  I invested $1,500 of cow-calf money I made at Warren County Fair (Indianola) and dad gave me $1,500.  Over about eight years I would read daily from the back of the DM Register – Sports section the stock quotes seeing what WMT price was listed.  It would go up by fractions of 1/8^th in the day and boy did it go up over time.  $3,000 turned into about $26,000 in about eight years.  I LIKED THAT!   When I was 16 I felt if I could help others make money then that was what I was going to do.  I wanted to be a stock broker and trade stocks.  I still have that ambition today. 

Dad came from humble beginnings and showed me the importance of hard work, investing money and to finish a four year degree.  Kids learn money matters from their parents.  A MarketWatch article dated May 2018 stated that 79% of Millennials ages 21 to 35 are not invested in the markets.  Two-thirds of millennials said their parents didn’t show them how to increase their wealth beyond having a job and currently, Millennials only own 5% of the total wealth of the economy.

I took my education seriously early on in school graduating from Norwalk and then at Northeast Missouri State in Kirksville now called Truman State.  While in college 1993-94 I became a Commodity Broker at CSI in West Des Moines.  I traded in the futures markets with contracts of Corn, Beans and Livestock.  Given only a few people make a lot of money in the commodity market and most lose … I felt it was best to complete my years in college and chase the pigskin around.  Right out of college I had about 4 jobs lined up in the financial industry and chose Edward Jones. 

A short time later (1996) I went to work for IDS Life which is now Ameriprise.  After a dozen years with this company I wanted to be free of the chains of high client fees, overseas service calls and a limited number of products to offer.  In 2006 I became an Independent Financial Advisor working with Cambridge Investment Research.  At that point I began working through Charles Schwab as the Custodian to my client accounts.

I started with one account and built up to 840 (IRA, Roth, Joint, Individual) accounts.  Today, I manage $110,000,000.  It has been a lot of hard work and study over long nights, weekends and the help of a personal assistant.  We used to call it ‘dialing for dollars.’  Today I am proud to say that most of my evenings and weekends are orchestrated by my two daughters.  I however will meet clients about anywhere and time.  Clients are welcomed to contact us. 

David manages money in the State of Iowa under the name of Des Moines Investments, LLC. He has worked as an Investment Adviser Representative (IAR) since January 2008.

David practices the golden rule in providing clients the types of products he uses for himself. He stays clear of high expense investments like annuities, A & C share Mutual Funds, Limited Partnership and Private Real Estate Trusts.  The Fisher Investments guy stole my line on TV –  “I Hate Annuities.”

Dave graduated from Northeast Missouri State (Truman State), Norwalk High School, and was born in Cumming, IA. While other advisors may come and go, Dave has etched his name in stone underneath the word ‘Investments’ on his building along Army Post-Des Moines Investments, LLC.