Why You Should Consider Buying that Powerball Ticket

Powerball

If you won the Powerball today, what would you do with the $90 million dollars?

While I’m not the first to tell you that you are definitely not going to win the Powerball – you have a 20 times greater  chance of having identical triplets – it’s a great idea to think about what you would do with the 90 million dollars if you did win.

Here’s why: your answer is a great way to understand what you truly care about in life.

What’s the first thing you thought of? Was it “retire and live on a boat in Hawaii?” “Quit my job and become a deejay?” “Book a ride to the Space Station?” Or even just “Stop worrying about how to pay for my kids’ college?”

Your answer – however crazy or however normal –  is a window into what’s really important to you and a great way of evaluating your current financial strategy. Is upgrading your home a potential goal? Have you budgeted enough for your passions? Should you start saving more for more travel and adventure? Have you looked into 529 plans?

As a Financial Advisor, I would advise that you not waste that $2 when it would be better spent collecting compound interest. I would ask you whether you’d already contributed to your 401K plan, your emergency fund, and your other long or short term savings goals. Then I would suggest that if you really wanted to play Powerball, that you re-allocate that $2 from another area –  skipping the caramel latte this morning, for instance, or biking to work tomorrow to save on gas – so that the $2 is amortized.

But I would also tell you to keep dreaming, because those things you are dreaming about are a great way to evaluate whether your current savings and investment goals are tailor-made to help you achieve the life you really want, the life you’d lead if there was nothing standing in your way.

So consider it: if you won $90 million dollars, what’s the first thing you’d do? Now call your financial advisor and take the first step to actually making that happen.

p.s. – If you want to see what your chances of winning actually are, click here to try the LA Times’ Powerball Simulator!

 

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The views expressed in this blog post are as of the date of the posting, and are subject to change based on market and other conditions. This blog contains certain statements that may be deemed forward-looking statements. Please note that any such statements are not guarantees of any future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected.
Please note that nothing in this blog post should be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any security or separate account. Nothing is intended to be, and you should not consider anything to be, investment, accounting, tax or legal advice. If you would like investment, accounting, tax or legal advice, you should consult with your own financial advisors, accountants, or attorneys regarding your individual circumstances and needs. No advice may be rendered by Sherman Wealth unless a client service agreement is in place.
If you have any questions regarding this Blog Post, please Contact Us.

7 Tips to Maximize the Value of a Bonus or Raise

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Expecting a bonus or a raise? Read these tips before you start Googling timeshares in Cancun

If you’ve got an end-of-year bonus or a well-deserved raise coming, it’s easy to think of it as “extra money” you can use to splurge on a trip to Mexico, a new phone, or a serious visit to the outlet stores. It’s particularly easy if you’ve been sticking to your budget and feel you deserve a little fun after behaving so responsibly all year!

Before you blow that bonus on a phone upgrade or a cruise, though, consider these smart ways to really reward yourself with the extra infusion of resources.

1. Upgrade Your Budget Instead of Your Phone

Still rocking a flip phone from the 90s? If so, yes, maybe you should invest in something smarter. But for most of us, it’s smarter to spread the extra cash across several budget items. Go ahead and add a little to your entertainment or entertaining budget, but consider allocating the rest of it to these smart ideas!

2. Make a Bigger Dent in your Debt

Are you feeling the weight of college loans, a mortgage, or, even worse, high interest credit card debt? You can lighten that load by using your bonus to make a larger payment than usual. It lowers your balance so it reduces some of those high interest charges moving forward. Increasing this budget category when you get that raise can also add up to a significant reduction of interest in the long run.

3. Invest to Watch it Grow

Setting aside money when you have large expenses to deal with now can be daunting. But the earlier you start investing the more time your money has to grow. If you haven’t already, create an investment account and put that bonus money to work for you, instead of leaving it in a checking account.

4. Kickstart Retiring

If you’ve kicked your tires and they need to be replaced, by all means, safety first! Use some of the rest of the money, though, to max out your company’s 401(k) contribution limits. If you qualify for an employer match, your bonus just got bigger!

5. Recalibrate Your Portfolios

If you’re already an investor, consider adding some of those extra funds to your investment portfolios. While you’re at it, take a look and see what’s working and what’s not. Your financial advisor can help you evaluate whether your allocations should be adjusted based on your risk tolerance and your long and short-term financial goals.

6. Start a College Savings Plan 

It’s never too early to start saving for a child’s college education. By starting early, you can get a good head start and maximize compounded interest. Your financial advisor can help you choose a plan that works with your life, you goals your timeline, and, most importantly, your bonus!

7. Save for a Rainy Day

Those emergency funds may seem like low priority, until you suddenly need them. If you haven’t already, create an account with funds for unexepected expenses like job loss, emergency repairs, medical bills for you, your family, or your pets, and even weather emergencies (remember Hurricane Sandy?) A good rule of thumb is to have three to six months of expenses saved up just in case.

There’s nothing wrong with treating yourself a little. You worked hard and you deserve it! Remember though, that by keeping the splurging and celebrating to a minimum, and letting that bonus or raise work for you, chances are you’ll have much more to celebrate when next year’s bonus comes around!

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The views expressed in this blog post are as of the date of the posting, and are subject to change based on market and other conditions. This blog contains certain statements that may be deemed forward-looking statements. Please note that any such statements are not guarantees of any future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected.

Please note that nothing in this blog post should be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase an interest in any security or separate account. Nothing is intended to be, and you should not consider anything to be, investment, accounting, tax or legal advice. If you would like investment, accounting, tax or legal advice, you should consult with your own financial advisors, accountants, or attorneys regarding your individual circumstances and needs. No advice may be rendered by Sherman Wealth unless a client service agreement is in place.

If you have any questions regarding this Blog Post, please Contact Us.

How Diversified is your Diversification?

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In November yet another firm fell victim to the growing Valeant fallout as Tiger Ratan Capital Fund LP fell 33% over the past three months, wiping out gains for 2015.

Those losses stemmed from the fact that Valeant accounted for 20% of TRC’s U.S. holdings. But they weren’t alone. Many well-respected funds, including the mighty Sequoia Fund, and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman’s Pershing Capital also had extensive exposure to long time Wall Street darling Valeant and suffered losses not only of value – but of face as well.

The dramatic losses came as quite a shock to many of the investors who own these – and other affected – funds, and who assumed that the funds were diversified – when in fact they weren’t. By going out on a limb and investing too much of their allocation in what has been one of Wall Street’s hottest stocks for years, many respected “hedge” funds experienced huge capital losses that it will take years to recover from.

In fact, of the 1,000 hedge funds tracked by Symmetric.IO, approximately 12% had a position in Valeant. A startling 32% of Valeant’s shares were held by hedge funds.

When Diversification isn’t Diversification

Having 20% of your portfolio in one stock is a huge risk for anyone. You never know when the next Enron or Worldcom may be and, because of accusations of unorthodox practices, it may very well be Valeant.

On the other hand, Valeant could still turn out to be a home run and deliver big time. No one really knows, which is why diversification is so key.

Many investors diversify with ETFs and mutual funds. But how many investors are absolutely certain that the mutual funds they are counting on to provide diversification, are, in fact, properly diversified themselves?

When that Hot Stock is Too Much of a Good Thing

When a “hot stock” or fund keeps climbing, it’s tempting to want to jump on the bandwagon, and the same is true for a hot sector. That’s no doubt why so many otherwise experienced fund managers over-exposed themselves to Valeant and to the health sector in general.

But while a portfolio with correlated assets that tend to do well together, is also a portfolio with assets that can tend to do poorly together when the winds shift. As Ben Carlson put it in a recent blog post: “Diversification requires finding the right balance between eliminating unsystematic risk (risk that’s specific to single securities or industries) and di-worsification by adding too many overlapping funds.”

Put another way: it’s not enough to put your eggs in different baskets, the eggs themselves need to be diversified, some plain, some speckled, and the speckled ones should be speckled in different ways.

A properly diversified mutual fund or ETF allow you to invest in a sector or a “hot stock” while mitigating risk. Which is no doubt what the investors who held Tiger, Pershing, and Sequoia thought they were doing.

The Moral of the Story

Due diligence. While you and your financial advisor are most likely diversifying your holdings, make sure that your holdings are also diversifying their holdings. Review your mutual funds frequently to make sure that their strategies, risk tolerance, and diversification standards align with yours and that they are not over-weighted chasing impressive returns from a couple of current wall street darlings.

The jury is still out on Valeant and on the funds that held it. It may in fact recover, although it would have to recover quickly to make up for the loss of momentum for the funds and investors that held it.

Nonetheless, it’s an important lesson for individual investors. A truly diversified portfolio is made up of truly diversified assets.

 

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This analysis is provided for informational purposes only and is not to be considered investment advice. The securities mentioned herein are for illustration of the concepts discussed and are not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Please see additional disclosures.

Robo Advisors vs Traditional Advisors: Beyond the Red Pill and the Blue Pill

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When you hear the words Robo Advisors, what do you think of…? The Matrix?

And does Financial Advisor conjure up a swaggering DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street? Or maybe someone in a Brooks Brothers suit, describing products you barely understand?

If you said yes to either, you’re not alone.

One common fear about the new wave of robo advisors is that, once you take the “red pill” and dive in, you’re no longer in control. You’ve turned your money over to a mysterious series of algorithms with no human in sight to help you guide it.

Many investors – particularly younger ones – are also put off by the idea of bespoke-suited advisors from traditional firms who are trying to up-sell them investments and insurance products with hefty fees and commissions. And even if they were to opt for the more conservative “blue pill,” traditional advisories are often not interested in speaking with them because they can’t make the hefty minimum investment.

While there is some truth to both stereotypes, there are also big shifts going on in the financial industry that make this a great time to take advantage of both a new breed of independent financial advisor and the efficiencies that targeted robo-platforms can provide.

Here are the differences – as well as drawbacks and benefits – in a nutshell:

Robo Advisors:

Pros:

  • Inexpensive compared to full-service portfolio management
  • Lower barrier to entry: lower initial investment requirements
  • Democratic: all clients benefit equally from algorithmic decisions, not just the big investors
  • Data-driven: driven by numbers, trends, and deep data – not emotions

Cons:

  • Limited scope: robo advisor only handle investment management, not comprehensive financial planning
  • Generic: they categorize you using broad-stroke demographic – not individualized- goal and risk-tolerance profiling to build your portfolio
  • Automatic: selling or “rebalancing” can be triggered by pre-set formulas at times that you might be wiser to stay put
  • Limited opportunities: many robo-firms currently have a limited or “preferred” set of funds and options you can invest in
  • Impersonal: no human interaction for questions regarding your individual investment portfolio

Traditional Financial Advisory Firms

Pros:

  • Someone who picks up the phone when you call or will see you when you make an appointment.
  • Flexible: can make real-time decisions about what’s right for you or when to buy or sell not rather than being locked into formulas.
  • Multi-layers of expertise to call on

Cons:

  • Barrier to entry: many traditional advisories have high minimums and confusing requirements and may only offer enhanced services to “premium” clients
  • Conflict of interest: many advisories have a “corporate agenda” to promote certain products, or they follow a [Suitability Standard] that doesn’t necessarily put the clients’ interests above their own
  • Change resistant: larger organizations can be “too big for their own good,” and slow to incorporate new tech or new processes that add value for their clients or address clients’ individual needs.
  • Limited customization: established firms frequently use old-school models of demographics, risk allocation, and target dates without factoring in what makes each client unique
  • Impersonal: while customer service is available, traditional firms often don’t truly “meet you where you are” and customize services and portfolios for you unless you have a large portfolio

Enter the New Breed

A growing number of independent financial advisors are disrupting the traditional model and starting to create a “third way,” hybrid advisories that strive to offer all the pros and – hopefully – none of the cons. They offer clients customized fee-only services – unhindered by corporate agendas – and with a lower minimum investment. At the same time they are able to incorporate the newest tech tools that not only make it easy for new clients to get started, but also offer fast, best-in-class investment management modeling to make faster decisions about managing investments.

Or, as Josh Brown so eloquently put it in a recent blog post, “…innovation and creative spirit is fleeing from the Old World to the new one.”

So why haven’t all advisors embraced the new technology to offer enhanced services to their clients? The three biggest reasons are inertia, inertia, and inertia. It’s not easy to change entrenched business models, culture, and processes. Remember how Netflix caught the video rental business napping?

Why Not Just Go with a Robo Advisor?

Robo advisors generally only offer investment management, not comprehensive, goal-oriented financial planning. While both investment advisors and robo advisors can recommend investment direction, strategy, and allocation, a good financial advisor can help you identify goals, customize budgets and cash flow planning, and help you with insurance, credit, and debt management, things a robo-platform can’t do.

The most important thing about the integration of new tech with personal attention and a customized plan is that a user-friendly tech interface can allow clients to manage all the pieces of their financial plans, from cash flow to 401Ks, while allowing an experienced advisor to monitor it and give clients a call when that advisor sees an opportunity, a red flag, or wants to check in about goals and direction.

These days, clients can see through the bespoke suits; what they’re looking for is bespoke service. By embracing selected and appropriate technology, this new breed of independent financial advisors are able to offer all the “pros,” while creating a new model of more transparent, conflict-free financial management that’s available to everyone who wants to set – an achieve – financial goals.

 

The Most Important Question You’ll Ever Ask Your Financial Advisor

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Does your financial advisor follow the Fiduciary Standard or the Suitability Standard?

If you don’t know the answer without peeking – or calling your Lifeline – you’re not alone. A surprising number of people don’t know what these very important terms mean and whether their advisor is acting in their best interest.

Aren’t all financial advisors required to act in their client’s best interest?

Surprisingly, not all financial advisors are.

Broker-dealers, insurance salesman, and bank and financial company representatives, for instance, are only required to follow a Suitability Standard. That means they must provide recommendations that are “suitable” for a client – based on age for instance, or aversion to risk – but that may or may not be in that client’s best interest.

Having a waiter recommend an expensive chocolate cake that is “suitable” for adults and for someone who is willing to risk trying chocolate with sea salt may not be that critical, in spite of the fact that having fresh strawberries may clearly be in your best interest. But having a financial advisor who is making recommendations primarily based on your age and risk tolerance – and who could be putting their own, or their company’s, financial interests ahead of your interests — could be disastrous for your financial future.

Instead, the Fiduciary Standard, which is the standard for registered investment advisors under state and federal regulations, requires that a financial advisor act solely in a client’s best interest when offering financial advice.

Registered Investment Advisors – like Sherman Wealth Management – must follow – and are held to – the Fiduciary Standard. That means that a RIA must put their client’s needs ahead of their own, provide fully-disclosed, conflict-free advice, be fully transparent about fees, and continue to monitor a client’s investments, as well as their changing financial situation.

Here’s a potential scenario that illustrates the differences

Let’s say your broker-dealer has three possible funds to recommend to you. The first is a “suitable” index fund, offered by her own company, which pays her a 6% commission on the sale and charges a 2% annual fee. The second is a similarly suitable index fund that would pay her a 3% commission on the sale and has a 1% annual fee. The third is an index fund that has no sales commission and an annual fee of .5%. Under the Suitability Standard, she can recommend the higher priced fund and still satisfy the standard. Under the Fiduciary Standard, she would be required to recommend the third fund.

This is not to suggest that broker-dealers or others operating under the Suitability Standard don’t look out for their clients.  While many reps who follow the Suitability Standard give their clients excellent advice, they operate with an inherent conflict: the pressure to sell products that are more profitable for them and/or their firm can be important factors in how they direct you to invest.

So go ahead and let the waiter talk you into that chocolate cake (even though you know you’ll feel better tomorrow if you have the strawberries.) But when it comes to your money, think carefully about whose advice you are taking.

 

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http://www.finra.org/investors/suitability-what-investors-need-know

http://financialplanningcoalition.com/issues/fiduciary-standard-of-care/

Donald Trump and the Benefit of Financial Foresight

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Donald Trump’s current net worth – as he would be the first to tell you – is estimated to be between $2 and $4 billion, most of which he made through inheritance and real estate investments, along with other business dealings. An article in National Journal recently took a look at what might have happened if he had invested in an S&P 500 index fund back in 1982 when his inherited real estate fortune was estimated to be worth “only” $200 million.  According to National Journal’s calculations, if he’d invested carefully in index funds, Trump’s net worth would be a whopping $8 billion today.

Does this mean Donald Trump is a bad investor? Not necessarily: the oldest lesson on Wall Street is that everything is easy in hindsight.

While highly speculative, those numbers do highlight the ongoing debate over which is a better investment – real estate instruments or stocks. Both stocks have and the real estate market have had great runs in recent history and, depending on when you invested, you could make cases for both investments being the better choice.

But the stock market and the real estate market both experience volatility, dips, and extended recovery times so, for the average investor, a portfolio composed of mainly real estate or other fixed assets (like art or collectibles, for instance) poses some risks that should be hedged with proper cash flow planning, a diversified portfolio, and proper tax planning.

Cash Flow Planning

A good financial plan takes into account how much cash you need access to, or may need access to in the future. Cash flow planning should be a key factor in deciding whether real estate investments are part your individualized financial strategy.

As National Journal points out, Trump claims he is willing to spend upwards of $1 billion of his own money to fund his presidential campaign, yet his financial disclosure statements show that he may have less than $200 million in cash, stocks, and bonds. The rest of his fortune is tied up in real estate investments, which could be much harder to liquidate and use for his campaign.

Most of us aren’t running for president but, if something like the 2007 housing collapse were to happen again, any investor who is predominantly invested in real estate could have problems liquidating those – diminished – assets for retirement, college funding, or other non-presidential goals.

A solution: diversification.

Diversification

Whether you are investing in real estate or the stock market, diversification is always a prudent way to address your own risk tolerance and use proper foresight in creating a winning strategy.

While with real estate funds, diversification can be achieved via many factors, including residential vs commercial investments, differing location focuses, and differing interest rates and financing mechanisms, it is still fundamentally one sector, subject to sentiment and swings.

With the stock market, on the other hand, diversification allows you the opportunity to invest not only in different asset classes, such as stocks, bonds, and money market funds, but in a variety of sectors and industries as well. Over the past 60 years, historically, the stock market has averaged an 8% annual return, so investors with strategically balanced and diversified portfolios, there is the opportunity for steady, while not spectacular gains, with the potential for less risk than investing only in the real estate market.

An investor who is properly diversified through multiple asset classes – including real estate if it makes sense for their own customized strategy – is potentially better protected against the short term results of one asset class experiencing a crash or a prolonged dip.

Taxes

Another thing to consider is that options for investing in real estate in IRAs and other tax-deferred accounts are complicated and not every custodian will allow you to include real estate investments in a tax-deferred account.

Hindsight vs Foresight

While Donald Trump is an outlier because his high net worth shelters him from some of the issues with primarily being invested in real estate, it’s intriguing to consider “what if.”

In the case of a more typical investor, a little foresight can go a long way in making sure you are on your way to achieving your own financial goals. A sound financial plan should be tailored to individual goals and cash flow needs, with a customized cash flow plan, and diversified across multiple asset classes for the potential for steady and compounded growth over time.

Whether you are a Donald Trump with a large inheritance or a young professional just getting started, a solid plan and strategy puts the benefit of hindsight where it belongs: in a conversation over coffee or cocktails, and not as the basis for a winning investment strategy.

My Response To a Millennial’s Open Letter To CNBC

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After the markets took an incredibly volatile ride on August 24th, zerohedge.com published this letter to CNBC from a millennial named Ryan, who wrote:

“I’ve dipped my toes in the stock market this past year but after today’s action, I have to say I’m done. Forever. Gone. Don’t count on another dime of mine in the market.”

Ryan isn’t alone. A surprising 74% of Millennials surveyed said they do not own stocks. And that’s unfortunate for Ryan and his fellow GenY-ers.

Ryan’s letter is worth a read – and he’s makes a couple of good points – but he’s also misses a very important point: none of this should really matter to a Millennial.

Here’s why.

“I’m sure countless little guys had their stocks absolutely steamrolled this morning only to see the big guys scoop up the shares on a discount.”  

There is obviously a wide range of ways to experience the market: as a small investor, as a large investor, and as a robot.  Are other people going to do better than you sometimes? Sure. They’re also going to do better than you at sudoko, finding parking spaces, and – unfortunately in my case – Fantasy Football as well. But that shouldn’t matter to you, and shouldn’t keep you from investing in your own financial independence.

The stock market is volatile and, sure, some investors may make impressive bets while others experience much too impressive losses (all investing involves risk, including the risk of the loss of principal.) But, historically, the S&P 500 averaged a 7-8% return (after inflation)* each year and that’s value you’re missing out on if you’re not invested.

 “The only “people” who can react to those pricing distortions in real time are computers. This isn’t a place for small time people like me.”

Nothing beats human guidance and judgment to prevent panic selling or override a previous decision when a drop in a price is anomalous and not due to a fundamental loss in value. Having a plan and sticking to it is usually the best approach and there are great Financial Advisors ready to help you or sharing their insight on the web.

“The only reasonable thing that any little guy can do is sit back and say, “Wow there is a lot of distortion going on and I can’t even guess at these prices.”

Investing shouldn’t be guesswork and doesn’t have to be. A good financial advisor – or your own research – can help you select a diversified group of financial instruments tailored to your own financial goals and risk tolerance. With that in place, along with a well-thought-out plan for steady saving and investing, market price fluctuations should not disrupt your plan. If you’ve got a solid financial plan, investing in the stock market does not affect your ability to pay your rent, take care of yourself or your family, or add to that rainy day emergency fund.

I hope you reconsider, Ryan.

As Millennials, we’re in it for the long haul, we have years of disciplined savings ahead of us with interest that will continue to compound if we avoid reacting emotionally to the markets.

Once the uneasiness of August 24th has worn off (and much of that day’s paper losses have already been recovered,) I hope you and the millions of Millennials who are not yet investing, take advantage of the opportunity to invest while you are young, to maximize your options for reaching your own financial goals, whatever they may be.

 

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*http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042415/what-average-annual-return-sp-500.asp

3 Winning Strategies Investing and Fantasy Football Share

Fantasy Football Goal

As the NFL season begins, millions of fantasy football fans are busy researching and drafting their teams. And this season, as in previous ones, fans will be wondering why some fantasy team managers just seem to have a knack for finding those sleepers and high upside players, while other managers routinely fail to understand and predict player value.

Investors often wonder the same thing: why do some investors consistently get it right and prosper, while others are lucky if they even break even?

Coincidence? Maybe, but there are several important things successful fantasy football managers have in common with successful real-life investors.

Here are three important mindsets that can help you go the whole 9 yards, whether it’s on the virtual gridiron or with your own financial plan.

Research the Players

A good fantasy football manager knows that you need to study all the different variables – including roster positions, draft picks, and expected performance – to build a winning team. Understanding the available options is critical to determining things like how many players you need at each position and which players you think will be the best.

This same principal applies to investing. A smart investor or financial advisor starts by understanding all the different variables, such as capital, types of investments, and asset classes. Understanding the pros and cons of various investment strategies is critical in determining how to choose a strategy that is the appropriate option for your own goals and needs.

Never count on a couple of stars to carry the team

When drafting your fantasy team, you always want to diversify your risk. You might not want to draft multiple offense players from the Green Bay Packers, for instance, even if that team is loaded with talent, because, if Aaron Rodgers and company have a bad week, your fantasy team will be struggling too. Smart fantasy managers build a stable foundation and don’t just count on rising stars.

When building your investment portfolio, risk diversification is critical as well. Wall Street is littered with stories of investors who put all their eggs in one “sure” basket, only to learn the lesson of diversification the hard way. Even if you’re extremely confident that a certain sector is a good bet, it’s usually better to diversify and limit your amount of exposure to individual sectors. That way, even if the sector doesn’t do as well as you had anticipated, your investments are distributed across other asset classes, and your risk should be better managed.

When the going gets tough, the tough stay disciplined

Anyone who has played fantasy football knows the danger of making a snap waiver wire decision you’ll regret later. On one hand, you don’t want to panic and drop your star player after a rough few weeks, only to see him rebound to a MVP-caliber season (and on someone else’s team!) On the other hand, just because an unproven player has a great week doesn’t mean he’s more valuable than the player you’d have to drop in order to acquire him.

When the market hits a volatile patch, it takes a disciplined investor to trust their plan and avoid making snap decisions about buying and selling. A look at the history of the stock market makes it abundantly clear that investors who take a long term view do better than those who shift their investment strategies with every changing wind. This doesn’t mean that any plan should be viewed as foolproof; a good investor or financial advisor knows the value of reassessing and recalibrating appropriately and strategically. What it does mean is that, when the going gets tough, a prudent investor takes the long view, stays disciplined, and sticks to a strategy.

It’s a long season

The only NFL team in history to have an undefeated season is the Miami Dolphins who finished 17-0 in the shorter 1972 season. No NFL team has gone 19-0 to date so it’s highly unlikely that any fantasy team will achieve perfection either. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a great season and get smarter and smarter about putting together a winning team.

With investing too, there will always be ups and downs, touchdowns and penalties, fumbles and conversions, and a few Hail Mary’s. But with a solid game plan and clearly defined goal, you’ll be on your way to a putting together a strategy designed to stand the test of time and put you squarely where you want to be: heading toward your own end zone with your eye on the ball and your own goals in sight.

 

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Straight Talk about Volatility and Compound Interest – the Snowball Effect

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Compound interest is, simply put, the interest you earn on the sum of both your initial investment and the interest that investment has already earned.

Why is it important? Because your two potential advantages when it comes to maximizing potential earnings over time are:

  • The power of compound interest
  • Investing regularly through market highs and lows

Let’s break this dynamic duo down:

 

The Power of Compounding

 

Compound interest is often compared to a snowball. If a 2-inch snowball starts rolling, it picks up more snow, enough to cover its tiny circumference. As it keeps rolling, its surface grows, so it picks up more snow with each revolution.

If you invest $1000 in a fund that pays 8% annual interest compounded yearly, in 10 years you’ll have $2158.93, in 20 years that will be $4660.96, in 30 years it will be $10,062.66, and in 40 years it will be $21,724.52. All it takes is patience to turn $1000 – the price of one ski weekend – into $21,724.52.

That’s why it’s so important to start saving early.

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The above chart is hypothetical and assumes an 8% rate of return compounded annually. It is for illustrative purposes only and is not indicative of the performance of any specific investment.   Investment return and principal values will fluctuate so that your investment when redeemed may be worth more or less than its original cost. Rates of return do not include fees and charges, which are inherent to other investment products. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

 

Volatility – Market Highs and Lows

 

But what happens if the market dips and your investment loses value?

Volatility – when market value fluctuates up and down – can be an opportunity for disciplined savers who contribute regularly to their investments, regardless of share price. When prices are low, you’re able to buy more shares. When prices are high you’re able to buy fewer shares for the same amount but those shares earn more interest, which is called Dollar Cost Averaging (Dollar cost averaging does not protect against a loss in declining markets. Since such a plan involves continuous investments in securities regardless of the fluctuating price levels, the investor should consider his or her financial ability to continue such purchases through period of low price levels.)

Imagine that snowball again, rolling down a hill, acquiring more and more snow as it goes. What happens when it hits a bare patch with no snow? Often it picks up rocks and pebbles, which add even more surface volume. So, when it hits the snow again, it picks up even more because it’s larger.

That’s how compound interest, coupled with regular investments, may work too: the “rough patches” produce more volume, which then allows you to acquire more compounded interest. So if you buy more shares during a dip, when the market recovers you could hypothetically not only earn compound interest on more shares, you earn more interest. So long as the price of your particular investment recovers, of course.

As Josh Brown points out in his recent blog post about Warren Buffett and David Tepper, both these legendary investors have gotten to where they are today because they’ve successfully ridden out volatility. In 1998 Warren Buffets own Berkshire Hathaway’s “A” shares had dropped in price from approximately $80,000 to $59,000 but Buffet didn’t sell. Those shares just hit a high of $229,000 this year.

If you see volatility – like what we experienced in August – as a tool and keep contributing regularly to your investments, you’ll potentially maximize the effect of compounded interest and watch your investments snowball over time!

 

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Additional Reading:

How two of history’s greatest investors deal with losses

http://awealthofcommonsense.com/did-investors-just-experience-the-best-risk-adjusted-returns-ever/

http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

http://www.moneychimp.com/features/market_cagr.htm

http://investor.gov/tools/calculators/compound-interest-calculator

Has the Internet Replaced Personal Financial Advisors?

human technology

With the wealth of information readily available online, it’s easy to feel that we’re all experts about everything. From scouring the finance blogs and Twitter for the latest “surefire” ways to beat the market, to diagnosing our aches on WebMD, to grilling along with Bobby Flay on YouTube, it can seem like we have almost instant access to the same information as the pros.

So when it comes to personal finances, why is it necessary to have a financial advisor when financial news is so readily available, Twitter is flooded with “hot tips,” robo advisors are ready to automate the whole process for you, and comparison shopping is so easy? Why can’t you just use this treasure trove of information to make your own financial decisions? Or subscribe to an algorithm-based service that will make the best lightning-quick decisions for you?

A couple of reasons…

If you’re good and you dedicate a lot of time online, you can definitely pick up some great information and strategies that the experts are sharing (follow me on Twitter by clicking here!) The tricky part is making sure that the information and the strategies are actually appropriate for you and appropriate right now. We all know that, if we’re not careful, the instantaneous nature of the internet, social media, and impersonal algorithms can lead to impulsive decisions that may not support our own long-term goals and personal risk profile. Quick reactions to new stock market “darlings” or to sudden market volatility can lead to choices that are not the best for your long – or even near – term financial health and growth. In fact, there is a whole science called Behavioral Finance that addresses how personal biases can lead investors to make decisions that actually work against the goals they set for themselves.

A good financial professional is able to sift through the vast amount of information available to you and determine what is significant to your strategy and what may just be a distraction. A financial advisor who understands Behavioral Finance can help you see where your assumptions, habits, and biases about money and investing may be leading you to get in your own way.

The new algorithm-based platforms are increasingly interesting and have a lot of merit, but the level of personalization is not yet very deep. That means that portfolios are based on broad criteria that may have nothing to do with your current situation, lifestyle, and goals. Again, this is where a trained professional will be able to view your unique individual needs and create a tailored strategy that is geared to you and not just everyone who matches your age and salary level. As more and more fiduciary financial advisors are starting to use smart algorithms as part of their offerings where appropriate, the key is “where appropriate” and “in the clients’ best interest,” the very definition of a fiduciary.

Think about it: would you rather grill along with Bobby Flay on your iPad or would you rather have regular meetings with Bobby, where he looks at the size and model of your Weber, the size of your shrimp, and the recipes you’re trying to learn, and works with you to make sure you become the master of your own grill? (and shrimp!)

The same goes for your financial future. While do-it-yourself is getting easier and easier, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s getting better and better. Look for a fiduciary financial advisor who also has access to the latest information online and is familiar with the latest algorithmic innovations, but who uses that information to get to know clients individually, and tailors a long-term growth strategy for them that will put them on the road to achieving the goals they have set for themselves.

 

With over a decade’s worth of experience in financial services, Brad Sherman is committed to helping his clients pursue their financial goals. Learn more about our Financial Advisor services.

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