What’s the secret? It’s simple really, have a written investment strategy. By my estimates, more than 95% of individual investors don’t have a written investment strategy and even some 85% of financial advisors don’t use them. This strategy should reflect your principles, values and philosophies about your finances. You’ll rarely refer to this document during a bull market when your … Read More
Incredible Retirement Tip: What Your Financial Planning Software Is Missing
If you or your financial advisor use financial planning software to help manage your portfolio, you’re almost guaranteed to fail. Let me explain. These programs seem logical. You plug in the amount of money you have now, how much you’re saving, when you want to retire, how much you expect you will spend in retirement, etc. The program then makes … Read More
Filtering Out Good Financial Advice vs. Financial Advice That’s Good for You
These financial “gurus” reach millions of people a day, and for the most part, give pretty good advice. However, that doesn’t mean that their advice is good for you. Why? The financial shows they advise for are geared towards the sound bite; entertaining, generic, broad, and quick. For example, a common piece of advice given is that a Roth … Read More
Incredible Retirement Tip: How To Measure Market Performance
Can you tell me how your investment portfolio performed last year? Don’t worry, this isn’t a trick question. Some of you will probably answer that your holdings were up X% from the previous year or that you outperformed the stock market. That is one way to assess your investment success but, in my view, it’s not the right way. … Read More