Category: RIA

Do I Need a Financial Advisor?

Investment Approach

Not everyone needs a financial advisor. But if you are not sure about how your financial assets should be invested, or if you have made major errors when you invest, you are a candidate for getting professional financial advice.

Fees are the main barrier that keeps people from getting the kind of advice that would improve their financial lives.

But just as doctors get paid for keeping us healthy and lawyers for protecting our interests, getting good financial guidance is worth every penny. Solving our financial problems has a huge impact on our lives. Making sure we don’t run out of money during a retirement that can last decades is often people’s biggest fear in life.

People who are in good shape financially may not need assistance. However, too many times people need guidance but are reluctant to pay for what they need. Instead, they search the internet, or ask friends or family who are often not knowledgeable. And even if they get good advice, friends and family are not going to create a plan and make sure that the plan is followed. That’s not their job.

That’s were a professional investment advisor comes in. They’re paid to help you create a plan, to design a portfolio that aligns with your plan, to manage that portfolio and to alert you in case the plan needs adjusting. Like a physician conducting a periodic physical, a financial professional keeps track of your progress and fixes it when things go wrong.

If you think you may need help, find an advisor in whom you have confidence, pay them a fair fee for their services and you’ll be rewarded with peace of mind knowing that your financial future is in good hands.

Financial Planning is the New Employee Benefit

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Some of the most progressive companies are introducing a new employee benefit: company-paid financial guidance.

Concerned about their employees’ retirement funds, and acknowledging the increasing scarcity of skilled employees, companies are looking for a benefit that is relatively inexpensive while making a big difference in employee satisfaction.

Financial Stress Is A Distraction

Financial insecurity troubles most people, from the entry-level employee to the highly compensated professional. Half of U.S. households are at risk of being unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement, according to one study. For most people, financial stress is a distraction from work and leads to lower productivity.

Money is the single largest source of stress for employees, ahead of work, relationships or health.
Employers are concerned about the impact employees’ financial problems are creating problems at work. Here’s what employers say they are most concerned about:
• Lack of retirement readiness 16%
• Paying down debt 15%
• Lack of emergency savings 13%
• Other 3%

Without professional guidance, most people take a seat-of-the pants approach. But that leaves them and their families wondering how they will survive the decades that they will spend after leaving the work force.

Many companies offer a retirement program, like a 401k, but are ill-equipped to do more than provide a menu of investment choices. To fill the information gap, more companies are offering financial-wellness programs. Others are considering such a move.

A program offered by Korving & Co. is a series of programs, provided by a CFP® (Certified Financial Planner™) professional. These are designed to educate participants about debt, investing, and retirement income planning.

Providing employees with professional education about these issues, on company time, in a relaxed setting is an economical way for companies to help their employees reduce stress. It also creates a great deal of good will and loyalty on the part of employees.

Call 757-638-5490 or use our contact page for additional questions or to get started today!

Can You Answer These Basic Money Questions?

The NY Post published an article Most Americans can’t answer these 4 basic money questions.   They questioned “Millennials” and “Boomers” to see who were most knowledgeable about investing.
Here are the questions – see how well you do.

  1. Which of the following statements describes the main function of the stock market?
    A) The stock market brings people who want to buy stocks together with people who want to sell stocks.
    B) The stock market helps predict stock earnings
    C) The stock market results in an increase in the price of stocks
    D) None of the above
    E) Not sure
  2. If you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2 percent per year, after 5 years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you left the money to grow?
    A) Exactly $102
    B) Less than $102
    C) More than $102
    D) Not sure
  3. If the interest rate on your savings account was 1 percent per year and inflation was 2 percent per year, after 1 year, how much would you be able to buy with the money in this account?
    A) More than today
    B) Exactly the same as today
    C) Less than today
    D) Not sure
  4. Which provides a safer return, buying a single company’s stock or a mutual fund?
    A) Single company’s stock
    B) Mutual fund
    C) Not sure
    D) Not sure

The correct answers are

  1. A
  2. C
  3. C
  4. B

If you had trouble getting the right answers you could benefit from the guidance of a good RIA (Registered Investment Advisor).

Mutual Fund Shares and Why They’re Important

Mutual fund share classes are little understood by the investing public, but they are important because they determine how much the investor pays in fees.

Fund classes are identified by an alphabetical letter that follows a mutual fund’s name in most newspapers.

Mutual fund “A” share classes typically have a “front-end load,” a sales charge payable when you buy the fund. This fee is used to pay the brokerage firm and part of it goes to the broker who sells the fund.

The amount of the load depends on the kind of fund – bond funds generally have lower loads than stock funds – and the amount of money invested. The more money that’s invested, the lower the fee. Known as “break points,” they refer to points at which front-end charges go down. For example, the front-end load for the Growth Fund of America class A shares is 5.75% on investments up to $25,000. But if you invest $1 million dollars or more the front-end load is 0%.

Mutual fund “B” shares typically have a “back end load” payable when you redeem the shares. These decline over a period of years (usually 6 to 8 years) until they finally disappear.

Both “A” and “B” shares usually have an “12b-1” marketing fee, generally 0.25%, charged annually.

Class “C” shares have no front-end load, a small back end load, usually 1%, that goes away after 1 year. However, they have higher 12b-1 fees, typically 1%.

There are other share classes such as I, Y, F-1, F-1, F-2. In fact, some funds have as many as 18 share classes. They are all the same fund; the only difference is the fee charged to the investor.

Many fund families offer “institutional” share classes that are only available to certain investors. Institutional shares are purchased by businesses who are in the investing business such as banks, pension funds, insurance companies and registered investment advisors (RIAs) who buy them as agents for their clients. This is one of the benefits of working with an independent RIA who has access to lower cost funds, load waived funds and no-load funds that are often not offered by the major Wall Street firms.

Contact us for more information.

Questions and answers about retirement

A couple facing retirement asks:

I will retire in the Spring of 2018 (by then I will have turned 65). My wife is a teacher and will retire in June of 2018. When we chose 2018 as our retirement date, we paid off our house. At the same time we replaced one of our older cars with a new one and paid cash. We have no debt. We will begin drawing down on our investments shortly after my wife retires. Also we both plan to wait until we are 66 to draw on Social Security. Our current nest egg is divided 50/50 in retirement accounts and regular brokerage accounts. About 60% are in equities and mutual funds. The rest is in bonds and cash. I’ve read about the 4% rule, adjusting annually up depending on inflation, expenses and market performance. As of today, based on our retirement budget, we can generate enough cash only using our dividends to live on. In our case this approach would have us taking interest and dividends from all accounts, including IRA, 457 B and 403 B before we are 70 years old. Seems that this approach would make it easier to deal with market volatility, yet it does not seem to be favored by the experts.

My answer:

There are a number of different strategies for generating retirement income. The 4% rule is based on a study by Bill Bengen in 1994. He was a young financial planner who wanted to determine – using historical data – the rate at which a retiree could withdraw money in retirement and have it last for 30 years. The rule has been widely adopted and also widely criticized. It’s a rule of thumb, not a law of nature and there are concerns that times have changed.

Based on your question you have determined that the dividends from your investments have generated the kind of income you need to live on in retirement. Like the 4% rule, there is no guarantee that the dividends your portfolio produces in the future will be the same as they have in the past. Dividends change. Prior to the market melt-down in 2008 some of the highest dividend paying stocks were banks. During the crash, the banks that survived slashed their dividends. Those that depended on this income had to put off retirement because their retirement income disappeared.

I would suggest that this is an ideal time to consult a certified financial planner who will prepare a retirement plan for you. A comprehensive plan should include your income sources, such as pensions and social security. The expense side should include your basic living expenses in addition to things you would like to do. This includes the cost of new cars, travel and entertainment, home repair and improvement, provisions for medical expenses, and all the other things you want to do in retirement. It will also show you the effects of inflation on your expenses, something that shocks many people who are not aware of the effects of inflation over a 30-year retirement span.

Most sophisticated financial planning programs forecast the chances of meeting your goals based on a “total return” assumption for your investments. Of course, the assumptions of total return are not guaranteed. Many plans include a “Monte Carlo” analysis which takes sequence of returns into consideration.

That’s why the advice of a financial advisor who specializes in retirement may be the most important decision you will make. An advisor who is a fiduciary (like an RIA) will monitor your income, expenses and your investments on a regular basis and recommend changes that give you the best chance of living well in retirement.

Finally, tax considerations enter into your decision. Most retirees prefer to leave their tax sheltered accounts alone until they are required to begin taking distributions at age 70 ½. Doing this reduces their taxable income and their tax bill.

I hope this helps.

If you have questions about retirement, give us a call.

Answering the important retirement questions.

With over 100 million people in America closing in on retirement, big questions arise.  Most investment advisors are oriented toward providing advice on how to build assets, but lack the tools and experience to advise their clients about how to live well during decades of retirement.

The most common advice that retirees get involves invoking the “4% Rule.”  That number is based on a 60-year-old-study that may well be out of date.  Individuals and families should be getting better guidance because now retirement often spans decades.  Many people are retiring earlier and living longer.

There are many critical decisions that must be made before people leave their jobs and live on their savings and a fixed income.

  • When should I claim Social Security benefits?
  • What happens if I live too long? Will I run out of money?
  • What would happen to my income if my spouse died early?
  • Will I need life insurance once I retire? If so, how much?
  • What are the effects of Long-Term-Care on my retirement plans?
  • Can I afford the items on my “wish list?”
  • Will I leave some money to my heirs?

Some Registered Investment Firms (RIAs) have the sophisticated financial planning tools to answer these questions.  They are often CFPs® and focus on retirement planning.  Once a plan is prepared, these same RIAs, acting as fiduciaries, are often asked to help their clients manage their assets to meet their retirement income goals.

If you are approaching retirement and have questions or concerns, contact us.  We’ll be glad to provide you with the answers.

Once you sell out, when do you get back in?

I recently heard about a 62-year-old who was scared out of the market following the dot.com crash in 2000.  For the last 17 years his money has been in cash and CDs, earning a fraction of one percent.  Now, with the market reaching record highs, he wants to know if this is the right time to get back in.  Should he invest now or is it too late?

Here is what one advisor told him:

My first piece of advice to you is to fundamentally think about investing differently. Right now, it appears to me that you think of investing in terms of what you experience over a short period of time, say a few years. But investing is not about what returns we can generate in one, three, or even 10 years. It’s about what results we generate over 20+ years. What happens to your money within that 20-year period is sometimes exalting and sometimes downright scary. But frankly, that’s what investing is.

Real investing is about the long term, anything else is speculating.   If we constantly try to buy when the market is going up and going to cash when it goes down we playing a loser’s game.  It’s the classic mistake that people make.  It’s the reason that the average investor in a mutual fund does not get the same return as the fund does.   It leads to buying high and selling low.  No one can time the market consistently.  The only way to win is to stay the course.

But staying the course is psychologically difficult.  Emotions take over when we see our investments decline in value.  To avoid having our emotions control our actions we need a well-thought-out plan.   Knowing from the start that we can’t predict the short-term future, we need to know how much risk we are willing to take and stick to it.  Amateur investors generally lack the tools to do this properly.  This is where the real value is in working with a professional investment manager.

The most successful investors, in my view, are the ones who determine to establish a long-term plan and stick to it, through good times and bad. That means enduring down cycles like the dot com bust and the 2008 financial crisis, where you can sometimes see your portfolio decline.  But, it also means being invested during the recoveries, which have occurred in every instance! It means participating in the over 250%+ gains the S&P 500 has experience since the end of the financial crisis in March 2009.

The answer to the question raised by the person who has been in cash since 2000 is to meet with a Registered Investment Advisor (RIA).  This is a fiduciary who is obligated to will evaluate his situation, his needs, his goals and his risk tolerance.  And RIA is someone who can prepare a financial plan that the client can agree to; one that he can follow into retirement and beyond.  By taking this step the investor will remove his emotions, fears and gut instincts from interfering with his financial future.

The Importance of 401(k)s.

Pensions are fading fast.  If you work for a private company the chances are good that your retirement plan is a 401(k), not a pension plan.   Even if you work for the government, the chances are that the entity you work for will resemble Illinois eventually.

That leaves you with the responsibility for your retirement.  There are two problems with the 401(k).

The first is that too many people do not participate.  Even when employers match their employee’s contribution, not everyone takes advantage of this “free money.”

The second problem is that most people don’t have enough information on the investment choices they are given in their 401(k).    Investing is complicated.  Most plans offer dozens of choices and few people know enough about investing to use them to create an appropriate portfolio.

Employers are not equipped to provide the information.  Most do not want to assume the liability that giving investment advice exposes them to.  An RIA (Registered Investment Advisor) who is also a CFP™ can provide the guidance people need to make sense of the investment option in a 401(k).   Find a CFP™ in your area.

Planning makes a difference

Happy senior couple walking on beach

Do you want to have fun in retirement?  Planning can make the difference and it doesn’t have to be difficult.  Working with a financial professional that understands your retirement goals can help you create a plan to make the most of your money – now and in retirement.

The partners at Korving and Company are Certified Financial Planning™ professionals – fiduciaries – who specialize in retirement.  We help people plan their retirement and continue to work with them during retirement.

There are 5 reasons why you should work with a financial professional to create a retirement plan.

  1. Focus on your goals in retirement and how you will pay for them.
  2. Address your concerns and expectations for retirement.
  3. Identify things that could pose a threat to your retirement and manage them.
  4. Feel more educated, confident and in control of your financial future.
  5. To help you navigate the complexity of financially moving into retirement.

 

Consolidating Your Assets

In 1945, two brothers, Jacob and Samuel, were rescued from the Nazi extermination camp of Buchenwald. The rest of their family had been killed. The brothers joined other refugees that left Europe after World War II. Jacob came to the United States, became an engineer, and worked many years for a major corporation. Samuel immigrated to Australia and became an accountant.

Several years ago, Jacob died. He had never married. Samuel — by now quite elderly —came to the United States to settle Jacob’s affairs. What he found was financial chaos. Jacob had always lived frugally and invested widely. Unfortunately, he kept very poor records. Samuel spent several weeks rummaging through files, boxes, drawers, and even under couch pillows trying to gather together all the certificates, statements, and even uncashed dividend checks that Jacob had left behind. We will never be certain that all of Jacobs’s assets have been located.

Few people leave behind as chaotic a financial tangle as Jacob did, but I find that more than half of the people I advise after a death are not certain that they can identify all of a deceased’s investment assets.

The first lesson from this example is this: DO NOT KEEP STOCK OR BOND CERTIFICATES AT HOME OR IN A SAFE DEPOSIT BOX. KEEP ALL FINANCIAL ASSETS IN BROKERAGE ACCOUNTS.

Modern brokerage accounts now allow access via checkbook, electronic funds transfer (EFT) and charge cards. Have all dividends and interest payments deposited in your account; and, if you need cash, you may write a check. There is no reason for your heirs to search through your papers to find uncashed dividend checks.

As people get older, financial advisors and estate planning attorneys often advise clients to consolidate their assets. This is sound advice and greatly simplifies the job of managing an estate at death.

It is often possible to consolidate assets — even mutual funds that you have bought outside of a brokerage account — with a single financial advisor or team of advisors. This has the advantage of giving your financial advisor a better view of your assets and thus providing more comprehensive plans and advice. It also makes it easier for the surviving spouse or heirs to identify your investment assets.

Investment accounts with brokerage firms, money managers, and mutual funds typically make up the bulk of the assets of most families. It is not unusual for a family to have multiple accounts.

Be sure to make a list of your investment accounts. You may use that investment section of the workbook to do so.

From BEFORE I GO by Arie Korving.  Available at Amazon.

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