What do you think when you hear the term “investment adviser?” What about “portfolio management?”
Until a few years ago most people had three main forms of compensation: 1) salary, 2) health benefits, and 3) pension plan. The pension plan provider bore the risk of investing pension plan assets to fund retirement for the plan particpants.
In today’s world most people continue to work for salary and health benefits. But the third component of compensation has changed quite dramatically. Instead of pension plan participation, most workers participate in and fund their own retirement plan, such as a 401(k) or 403(b). Participation is driven by a mix of employer incentives (such as funding matches) and government incentives (tax deductions or credits).
This represents a monumental change in the way Americans fund retirement. In the history of our country there has never been a time when more people have been responsible for funding their own retirement. It is now important for the average American to become familiar with concepts of portfolio management.
If one or more of the following applies to you, you may benefit from our services:
- You don’t have the time, ability, or desire to analyze various investment products
- You are worried about the stock market
- You want help planning for retirement or another financial goal such as savings for a child’s college education
- You constantly find yourself waiting for prices to come down before investing, or you are constantly worried about investing at the “top of the market”
- You keep most of your money in checking account or Certificates of Deposit, either out of fear or simply not knowing what else to do
- You get your investment ideas from family, friends, or news anchors
- You are worried you have taken on too much risk
- You are uncertain how tax laws might affect you
- You want to invest your money, but don’t know where to start or what to buy
- Most of your investment portfolio consists of your employer’s stock
- You are unsure of the advantages and disadvantages of individual stocks, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, bonds, bond funds, annuities, or the various other investment products available today
- You have spent hours reading or surfing the web for financial advice but don’t feel like you know who to trust
- You would like to save but are unsure what steps to take
- You would like a professional to manage and monitor your portfolio
- You are surprised at the high fees you pay to your current adviser
- You are surprised at the high fees imposed by the mutual funds you select or selected by your current adviser
- Your current adviser’s performance has lagged the market
- You don’t know how or don’t have time to reduce your taxes by tax-loss harvesting
- You view the stock market as a way for big institutional traders to take advantage of the “little guy” (which can be true if the “little guy” doesn’t know what he’s doing)
- The words “Modern Portfolio Theory” mean nothing to you
- You would like to pay less taxes
- You make charitable donations to your church or other charities
- You don’t have the time to effectively manage your portfolio
- You think that a professional could improve your portfolio performance
- You believe only “the big guys” can afford sophisticated portfolio management
- You want professional money management but can’t afford a large up-front fee
- You find it disgraceful that 85% of mutual funds underperform the market from year to year
- Your basic investing approach consists of finding the best mutual fund managers
- You rely on a one-size-fits-all newsletter to choose your investments
- Investing in foreign markets seems dangerous
- You simply buy-and-hold rather than taking advantage of tax-loss harvesting and other portfolio enhancing opportunities
- You would like help managing a retirement plan (e.g. 401k or IRA) or help with a rollover
- You believe your current adviser makes too many trades
- You find yourself worrying about “hidden” or undisclosed fees with your current adviser
- You don’t know all the fees you pay to your current adviser
- Your current adviser doesn’t seem to know what’s going on with your account (this most commonly occurs because your account is too small to be important to your adviser, or because your adviser is really a salesperson who has outsourced management of your account)
- You don’t know which mutual funds to buy
- You want to diversify your portfolio to minimize risk, but don’t know how
- Watching the evening news induces panic and makes you think you should pull all your money out of the stock market as soon as possible