It’s understandable that people are confused on how they benefit from working with a financial advisor. 

Some advisors pick stocks or mutual funds.

Others sell products like annuities or insurance.     

Some advisors do much, much more.

I work as my client’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

What is a Chief Financial Officer (CFO)?

A Chief Financial Officer (CFO) is a senior executive who is responsible for the overall planning and management of a company’s financial affairs. A CFO (working for the CEO) is responsible for the planning, implementation, managing and running of all the financial activities of a company, including planning, budgeting, forecasting and negotiations. 

As a Personal CFO I work for you, the CEO of Your Retirement.

What’s it like to have a Personal CFO for your retirement? 

As your Personal CFO I will help you:

Know where you “stand”

Help you determine where you want to “go”

Work with every step of the way to get you there

Great planning and execution are key to a financially stress-free retirement.

Why is working with a Personal CFO different?

I advise on all financial strategies, approaches and decisions, not just investments.

As your Personal CFO I lead the development, evolution and implementation of your retirement plan including advising on planning, income, forecasting, estate, tax, risk reduction, longevity and investment strategies. 

We will work together to:

Determine a plan to reach your financial goals

Maximize your money & minimize the taxes you pay

Avoid planning & investment mistakes

When you receive proactive and comprehensive advice you’ll have the clarity to retire with confidence.

Are you ready to learn more about working with a Personal CFO for Your Retirement? I know that taking the first step can be the hardest, that’s why I’ve made it as easy as possible. Just click here to schedule a Free No-Obligation Personal CFO for Your Retirement Introduction Call with me and get started towards your retirement success.

I specialize in retirement, and I work with clients as they prepare for, transition into, and enjoy their retirement.

There are many ways to work with a financial advisor and to prepare for your retirement, so I wanted to explain the specific services I provide and your options for how we could work together.

I can create a Financial Plan for your retirement. 

In this plan, you will find detailed answers to all your retirement questions and the specific steps you will want to follow to meet your retirement goals. This Retirement Financial Plan will give you clarity on your path to retirement, but it will be up to you to execute the plan’s steps and figure out what adjustments you need to make as things change over time. This is the right option if you’d like expert retirement help now but ultimately want to manage, track and oversee things yourself.

I can be your investment manager. 

We’ll work together to determine the optimal risk-based strategies to match your investment goals. My job will be to make sure you see a maximum return on your investments as we create, maintain, and evolve your portfolios over time. If you already have a solid plan for retirement and want to make sure your investments are delivering for you, then this is the way to go.

I can serve as your Personal CFO before and during your Retirement. 

Simply put, this is like having a Chief Financial Officer handling everything related to your retirement, including all planning and tax strategies plus investment and income management. You’ll receive proactive, comprehensive, and ongoing services in all areas related to your retirement. If you want someone to take care of it all for you so you can have the clarity and confidence you need to focus on other things, then this is the best option for you. Because of the time and attention required, I provide this particular service for only a limited number of clients.

Whether you’re looking for a one-time Retirement Financial Plan, ongoing Investment Management, or a Personal CFO to advise on all of your finances and Retirement, I know that taking the first step can be the hardest, that’s why I’ve made it as easy as possible. Just click below to schedule your Free No-Obligation Retirement Planning Call with me and get started towards your retirement success. During our conversation, I guaranteed it will be obvious what option is best for you.

During a never ending flow of outsized opinions…where opinion is news and the news is opinion, “Make no assumptions” may be the timeliest advice of all. 

Political beliefs.  Life choices.  Retirement financial decisions.

For this reason a conversation with a great client and friend was significant to me last week.

My client heard Adam Grant speak about his latest book “Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know”.

One piece of advice that Mr. Grant offered was to have someone in your life that would challenge or introduce you to see things from a different angle. Mr. Grant clearly wasn’t referring to someone that wanted to aggressively press opposing political views into you, but a more subtle approach that introduces you to doubt around your firmest views while opening your mind to things you haven’t considered.  

My client thought I was one of those people in his life.  And his comment made my day. 

Do you have an individual that you trust to challenge you?

Do they challenge you on your personal beliefs?  Political biases?  Assumptions about money?

Every day I work hard to avoid assumptions, because I’m probably wrong about something. And when I feel overly confident, I stop and force myself to think again.

As you approach retirement you’ll have to make some assumptions.  And while some assumptions are necessary, it’s key to eliminate as many (and as early) as possible during your planning.  When you do have to make assumptions, it’s important to make them in an educated way.

Here are three (of many) assumptions that I see people get wrong when planning for retirement.

I need a large amount of money/big annual returns to make my retirement work.

The fact: Great planning is the key to retirement success. When you have financial clarity and confidence, you’ll be more relaxed and, likely, enjoy your retirement more. You’ll probably even live longer!  Sure, more money can make things easier but trying for aggressive returns can not only damage your retirement but also your head and your heart.  Instead, planning can help you understand how early you can retire and how conservative you can invest and still have a successful retirement.

I’ll be fine if I keep working until my retirement date.

The fact: Unfortunately, according to Forbes, you have a 50% chance of retiring early for reasons out of your control. You should have a plan that considers this contingency, shouldn’t you? What’s worse than running out of money during retirement? How about working at a job that stresses you so badly that you pass earlier than expected in retirement.

And the biggest misconception:  

I don’t need to start planning yet. OR….  It’s too late for planning to help me.

The fact: While it’s true the earlier you start the better off you’ll be, it’s never too late to create a great plan.  Your retirement may be 20 or even 30 years long and each educated action you take as you prepare for or are in retirement will compound and likely add to your retirement success.

Compound your knowledge. Your confidence. Your money.  

If you can grow your retirement confidence and increase your chances of reaching your financial goals by proactively planning, shouldn’t you start planning now?

Are you ready to take your retirement seriously? I know that taking the first step can be the hardest, that’s why I’ve made it as easy as possible. Just click below to schedule your Free No-Obligation Retirement Planning Call with me and get started towards your retirement success.

It was approximately 16 months ago that we first discussed the coronavirus in these missives. At that time history was telling us that while viruses have a habit of forming frequently, rarely do they have effects on a global scale.   

Covid-19 is an outlier.  

No matter how you feel about Covid-19, it has had a major effect.  Life hasn’t been normal.

But maybe the markets have been acting normally all along.

First a massive sell-off in March 2020 as the markets recalibrated the potential economic risks of the Coronavirus. 

Then, the government pushes massive amounts of money into the system, eliminating much of the short term risk.

Finally, a massive rally higher in the markets, Tesla, NFT’s, SPAC’s, Bitcoin/Crypto, Bonds and Real Estate.

Yes, (almost) everything is going up.

A record 96% of the components in the all-encompassing Wilshire 5000 have seen positive returns in the past 12 months.

-CNBC, April 26, 2021

Stimulus, bailout and economic reopening.  All at the same time.  Driving markets higher.

Too much money chasing too few assets you say?  Chasing assets you’ve never even heard of before…A non-fungible token?  A SPAC’s? 

But still, the question becomes…

Will a market crash and hurt my retirement?

(Crash = 30% decline of the broad market indexes)

US Stock Markets – If the US Economy doesn’t show up as the markets expect it will, will the markets crash?

If Tesla (and other amazing companies like it) – can’t shore up it’s long-term profit picture, will the markets crash?

If Bitcoin were to crash it would take more than a trillion dollars with it.  Yes, 1 trillion dollars.  More likely, the entire cryptocurrency market. Will the markets crash?

And finally, the housing market.  Everyone is saying it’s different this time but with 2.7 million homeowners still not paying their mortgage (as of February), what will the effect be as these homes come to market after the government protections relent. Will the markets crash?

But before you attempt to answer these questions (which, in all reality, you cannot!), maybe focus on questions you can answer!

Questions like:

• How do I reach my retirement goals?
• How much do I need to save for retirement? 
• Can I afford to retire/what can I afford to spend in retirement?
• What is my necessary rate of return needed based on my retirement goals?
• How do I need to invest for my retirement?
• How do I turn my 401k/IRA into retirement income?
• Should I pay off my house before retirement?
• When should I take social security? How much will healthcare cost? 
• How will I address long term care needs/not burden my children?

And when you know the answers to these questions, you’ll have the answer to this question:  Will a market crash hurt my retirement?

The only way to answer these questions? Create a real retirement plan.   

Want answers now?  Contact me here to learn about Creating a Financial Plan for Your Retirement.

PS: If you know someone who isn’t quite up to speed on financial or retirement planning terms, you might send them to this post to get them started.  Or have them contact me here.

“The American marketplace is an economic jungle. As in all jungles, you easily can be destroyed if you don’t know the rules of survival. … But you also can come through in fine shape and you can even flourish in the jungle—if you learn the rules, adapt them for your own use, and heed them.” — Sylvia Porter

Is it just our imagination, or has there been an uptick lately in exciting new trading tactics for seizing riches from exotic new markets? 

Unfortunately, as Sylvia Porter observed above in her 1,200-page, best-selling “Sylvia Porter’s Money Book,” excitement isn’t necessarily an investor’s best friend. Respecting the jungle rules is the wiser way to endure.

What’s Old Is New Again

Who is Sylvia Porter? A 20^th century financial author and journalist, Porter challenged financial and social norms alike during her extensive career, which launched in the 1930s and peaked in the 1970s. Making her way in a male-dominated business, she initially wrote under the name S.F. Porter, to conceal her gender. By 1975 (when her Money Book was first published), she was syndicated across 350 newspapers as well as the Ladies’ Home Journal. [Source]

Porter is credited as having created the role of personal financial journalist, writing for and by the people. And yet, few remember her name. This in itself is telling of how readily financial times, tides, and fortunes can ebb and flow.

But let’s return to the here and now, and the current incubator of hot new trends. After a year of sitting at home, an excitable generation of do-it-yourself traders has been replacing traditional leisure-time activities with online pursuits—including aggressive, Tweet-worthy trading for fun and profit.

The result? Waves of volatile financial feeding frenzies and overnight sensations, egged on by a brood of freshly hatched social media stars, and a spate of flashy new trading platforms with captivating names like Robinhood.

When SPAC-Man Speaks

The movement roughly launched in January 2021, when a Reddit-driven rally abruptly sent the prices of several unloved stocks like GameStop through the roof. More recently, special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) have captured a lot of attention. “When SPAC-Man Chamath Palihapitiya Speaks, Reddit and Wall Street Listen,” observed a recent Wall Street Journal column. “Amateur traders hang on [Palihapitiya’s] every word for clues about his next target—and for the insults he hurls at the high-finance elite.”

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have also been taking the trading world by storm. As described in this the Hustle article:

“An NFT can represent any kind of digital asset: a piece of artwork, an audio file, a video clip, a plot of virtual land. The NFT isn’t actually the piece of artwork itself; it’s a piece of code on a digital ledger (blockchain) that points to where the artwork lives — usually on a server somewhere else.”

If you think of an NFT as being like a collectible—say, an autographed baseball card—but in digital format, you’re getting close to envisioning its worth. Similar to playing cards, people are collecting these pieces of code, typically exchanging them in cryptocurrency such as bitcoin.

How much is an NFT actually worth? However much the market decides. Some are currently trading in excess of $1 million each. As the Hustle article describes, NFTs “have caught the attention of tech investors (Mark Cuban), the high-brow art world (Christie’s auction house), and major corporations (Nike) alike. And everyone from Lindsey Lohan to the rock band Kings of Leon is flooding the market with high-priced virtual creations of their own.”

Innovations vs. Investments

These and similar get-rich-quick possibilities may seem shiny and new. And some of the underlying infrastructure truly is groundbreaking. Like the Internet, electricity, and the wheel, intriguing innovations like blockchains, cryptocurrency and NFTs may lead to incredible applications we can’t even imagine at this time.

Plus, at least on paper, there are those who have amassed rapid fortunes by being in the right place at the right time. Trading into the innovations, they’ve caught a wave of risk-laden opportunity; some have gotten very rich in return. Much of the action is highly reminiscent of the 1990s tech bubble, when a trade at nearly any price into nearly any company with a high-tech name seemed sure to pay off handsomely … right up until most of them no longer did.

Time will tell whether these brave speculators manage to convert their good fortune into lasting wealth once today’s trends fizzle or fly. Because beneath it all, the laws of the jungle remain the same. Among these immutable laws is determining whether you want to be a sprinting speculator or a long-distance runner in the wilds of the stock market—and trading accordingly.

In his book, “The Psychology of Money,” Morgan Housel describes two types of market participants—short-term traders and long-term investors—and why it’s essential to know which one you are:

“Short-term traders operate in an area where the rules governing long-term investing—particularly around valuation—are ignored, because they’re irrelevant to the game being played. Bubbles do their damage when long-term investors playing one game start taking their cues from those short-term traders playing another.”

97-year-old billionaire Charlie Munger (Warren Buffett’s long-time Berkshire Hathaway partner) is even more blunt about the differences between short-term speculators versus long-range investors. Some “may call it investing,” he said in a recent interview, “but that’s all bulls**t. It’s really just wild speculation, like casino gambling or racetrack betting.”

In yet another powerful piece, “Financial Implications of Robinhood Investors,” financial author Larry Swedroe took a look at a recent academic study that analyzed the new breed of stock market participants using Robinhood’s no minimum, zero-commission trading platform. The study found that Robinhood participants tend to be younger; less wealthy; and hungry for more frequent, higher-volatility trades. In aggregate, “zero-commission investors behave as noise traders,” with a market impact similar to past noise trading and inventory risk models.

Thriving in the Jungle

In other words, hot trends are business as usual in the financial jungle. Fortunes will rapidly rise overnight. But many will fade just as suddenly. A few will strike it rich. Far more will be left licking their wounds … if they’re lucky.

That’s a dicey way to patiently pursue your long-term financial goals. You may be seeking to harvest returns from the same market, but your end goals are entirely different from those of noise traders on the prowl. Remember these differences if you ever feel a little left out of all the excitement. It should address your concerns about whether they know something you don’t.

As 16^th century Renaissance mathematician and gambler Gerolamo Cardano reportedly once said: “The greatest advantage in gambling lies in not playing at all.”

Ready to take your retirement seriously? Taking the first step can be the hard, that’s why I’ve made it as easy as possible. Click here to schedule a Free No-Obligation Retirement Planning Introduction Call with me and get started towards your retirement success.

There’s no bigger story in 2021 than GameStop.   As social media powered Robinhood traders assault a large hedge fund there is quiet joy that Goliath is being slain by David.  

The underdog is winning.  Or so it seems.

And while the frenzy continues (though it’s unwinding quickly), the real question for many of you is: How will this affect my retirement?

Before we address that question let’s address what’s likely taken place with GameStop.

A relatively small and (soon to be it appears) obscure company, shorted by hedge funds (they are betting that the stock will fall and the company fail), suddenly rises as experienced and knowledgeable Reddit-connected traders buy into the stock causing pain to the hedge fund’s shorts.  This took time, building momentum over months.

As the stock rises quickly in 2021, a few hedge funds takes significant losses, as others take on new short positions. 

At the same time, experienced Reddit traders are likely selling their stock to less experienced investors distributing their positions across a large group of individuals.   As the stock drops hedge funds benefit from their newly positioned shorts while broad losses are spread over tens of thousands of inexperienced investors across the world.

Doesn’t sound like David beat Goliath in this example does it?

A few hedge funds lost money.  Experienced Reddit traders made money.  A few other hedge funds made money.

A large group of inexperienced investors will have material losses.  And the lesson of a lifetime.

So in the end money has largely flowed from the inexperienced to the experienced.  

Sounds like Robinhood? Not so much.

In a week, the whole story may be old news.  And the effect of such shenanigans will likely have no quantifiable effect on your retirement.  “Short squeezes” like this aren’t new to the world of trading and investing.  Most just aren’t this dramatic and well covered by the media.  But for you, in the end, likely irrelevant.

Photo by Michael Förtsch on Unsplash

I’ve been working remotely with clients for years.

A natural evolution, I found it to be both cost-effective and time-efficient but also ideal for my clients. The pandemic accelerated the trend where advisers work with clients remotely.  I believe it’s here to stay.

Uh John, what is a “remote advisor”? 

Simply put it’s an advisor that doesn’t live where you live.   Zoom didn’t invent the virtual meeting but they made it relevant, even preferred, and the pandemic only accelerated it’s adoption.

While it’s immediately obvious that remote advisors can increase convenience, there are two major reasons why working with a remote advisor will remain long after the pandemic is gone:

1. It’s more cost-effective 
2. You can work with a specialist

First, remote advisors save you money.

Let’s assume you drive to your advisor’s office….it’s likely in a nice building in a pricey location with a receptionist to greet you, take your coat and offer a beverage, and, then, lead you to a well-appointed conference room.  

What they don’t do is hand you the bill for all of it.  But they should.  Because you’re paying for it.

In the 2000’s, when I started at UBS, the firm took $.60 of every $1 a client paid for my services: Class A midtown office space, glass offices, expensive furnishings and a gaggle of “vice presidents” throughout the organization.

None of it tangibly benefited the client.  

A well managed remote advisor has lower expenses. Most will pass along those savings to their clients. I know I do.

Second, you can hire an advisor that specializes in clients like you.

With over one-hundred and fifty-thousand “financial advisors” in the United States your choice of advisors are endless. No longer limited by geography, working remotely means you can find and work with a specialist.

If you needed heart surgery, you wouldn’t seek a general practitioner, you’d want a cardiologist! 

But don’t worry, it’s easy to narrow down your choices when you have specific needs.

Are you a newly minted graduate needing help with your debt and savings strategies?

Find a specialist!

Are you a young couple with dual incomes, a new home, and young children but want to save for college and retirement? 

Find a specialist!

Are you less than 10 years from retirement and want to maximize your retirement income and minimize your retirement risk?

Find a specialist!

Don’t settle for the advisor down the street, focus on finding someone that’s right for you!

Looking for an advisor that specializes in retirement? Click here to schedule an introductory call

Should you consider doing a Roth Conversion?

What issues should I consider when reviewing my investments?

Not a client and would like to explore working toward a successful retirement? Schedule an introductory call here.

​Making smart investment decisions is an important part of your retirement planning.  Considering taxes is important as well.

It’s likely that your retirement plan offers contribution flexibility which allows you to make “Traditional” pre-tax and/or Roth after-tax contributions. Both provide certain tax benefits and, individually or together, can help you move closer to your long-term goals.

To take control of how you may be taxed, decide on one of these contribution options, or use a combination of both. 

Please note that any matching contributions provided by your employer will always be contributed to your pre-tax “bucket” of your 401(k), regardless of how you decide to contribute to your 401(k) account.

“Traditional” Pre-tax Contributions

• These contributions reduce your current taxable income and, therefore, should reduce your current taxes.

• Your earnings will compound on a tax-deferred basis. No taxes are owed on your earnings until you withdraw money from your account. 

• Withdrawals at retirement are taxable. Because you haven’t yet paid taxes on your contributions, you will be taxed when you take money from your account (unless you roll it to another tax-deferred account).

Roth After-tax Contributions

• Your contributions are from income that is taxed up front. Roth contributions come out of your paycheck after taxes have been calculated; therefore, your current taxable income is not reduced.

• Qualified withdrawals are tax-free. Your qualified withdrawals at retirement — including earnings — will be tax-free.

• You don’t have to worry about future tax rates. Since qualified distributions at retirement are tax-free, they won’t be negatively affected if tax rates increase in the future.

Here’s a handy calculator provided by American Funds that can help you make a decision on whether to make traditional pre-tax or Roth after-tax contributions.

Visit the American Funds Calculator Here