Your Investment’s “Survival Rate” And Why It Matters To You
Pretend for a moment that you have a mild medical condition and you visit your doctor for advice. After looking you over and running tests, the doctor provides you with a recommendation. There is a new drug available, and she would like to prescribe it to you. The only issue is that there is a 50% chance of survival over the next 15 years. Would you take that advice?
Would you be surprised to know that there is a similar chance of survival with investments? The mutual fund/ETF industry is continually creating new products for the investor. Some of them, like the ones that we use at Waypoint, are intended to benefit the investor with lower than average costs, more tax efficiency than many others, and a very high chance that they’re built to last. Unfortunately for many, many other investments the goal is to make money off of you rather than for you. > SEE MORE
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Waypoint Wealth Management
“Trees Losing Their Leaves; Experts Say No End In Sight”
I pulled out my smartphone the other day to view some of the morning’s headlines while waiting for my chicken salad powerhouse wrap (detail added so that you knew I wasn’t driving while reading). Here’s the first line that showed up:
“Dow 20,000 is coming this year…”
My first thought was how funny this headline is. (By the way, for the wise investor who doesn’t track the Dow—the level is around 18,300 as of this writing). Can you imagine the news predicting such a higher market this year just weeks ago when the market sold off by almost 1,000 points (before coming back a few days later)?
This got me thinking about the equity market’s recent “all time high” that is continually making headlines (again). As investors, we have to be careful with what information we’re taking in, and how our perceptions can influence the expectations we have with our own portfolios. A little more than three years ago the same thing was being reported. As the market recouped all of its losses from the ’08-’09 downturn (on a point basis) and began to touch new levels that year, all we heard about was the market’s new high—each time it happened—until a more enticing headline came along.
It’s kind of like having the Baltimore Sun report front page news about how the leaves on trees surprisingly emerge with such brilliance—every single spring. I can see the paper now: “Leaves Are Back, And Greener Than They’ve Ever Been—But For How Long?!” …followed later in the year by the equally astonishing headline “Trees Losing Their Leaves; Experts Say There Is No End In Sight”. > SEE MORE
Posted by:
Pete Dixon, CFP®
Partner and Advisor
Is Your Advice Good Enough?
In today’s climate of one-page financial plans, bargain-basement fund pricing and automated investment tools, you may wonder whether you need a living, breathing financial adviser.
We think you do, but with a twist. First, we need to redefine traditional financial advice – the kind that’s been delivered by those focused on issuing buy/sell recommendations, executing transactions, making you think they have the best investment product for you, and collecting their commissions. If that’s what you’re thinking of, you are correct. You don’t need that. You probably never did.
As we face continual changes with the markets, Social Security, taxes, etc., the welcome advances we referenced above are best thought of as augmenting rather than replacing the solid advice most investors still sorely need to see their way through to a rewarding retirement.
So, what is “good advice”? > SEE MORE
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Waypoint Wealth Management
My Love/Hate Relationship With ‘Past Performance’
“Past performance is not indicative of future results.”
Sound familiar? If you have invested in any regulated investment of any form, you have read or heard this phrase before. I have to be honest. Even as a professional advisor, when I read this and explain it to clients there is something about it that gets on my nerves. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s untrue or that I don’t believe it. We don’t know what the future returns of our investments are going to be. We don’t know the exact short-term direction of an investment, and if anyone tells you that they do, you should find another advisor because you will be set up for failure.
If I really think about why this phrase annoys me, I think it is because I want to find some certainty with an investment’s outcome. Doesn’t everyone? > SEE MORE
Posted by:
Pete Dixon, CFP®
Partner and Advisor