Financial Planning

I’m all for starting slowly. Get started with something comfortably, and then gradually make things a bit more difficult. Unfortunately, brokerage firms, RIAs, and discount brokerages don’t take this same approach. Let’s say you get up the courage to start investing. You’ve gone through this book, and you feel you are money smart. You are…

Which of the following is possible? North Korean cyber-terrorists can hack into our banking system and wipe out our wealth. A magnitude 15 earthquake strikes in California causing the state to sink into the Pacific Ocean. Artificially intelligent robots replace 99% of global jobs leaving the population without work and income. The U.S. government could…

For the next ten seconds, stop everything you’re doing. You just learned the investment trick. In case you missed it, let’s try it again. Imagine you just heard that a well-known financial guru has predicted the market is going to crash in the coming weeks. Here is the investment trick: stop everything you’re doing. Did…

Have you heard the breaking news story about the dog that bit a man? Of course not. That’s not news. A dog biting someone is fairly routine. What about the news story about the man biting a dog? Maybe that was newsworthy about 20 years ago, but even that is blasé. To make news now,…

Have you heard of the caveman who was analytical, measured in his approach, and focused on long-term goals rather than short-term dangers? No? Yeah, me neither. That dude didn’t live to be 12 years old. He’s not a caveman, he’s a cave boy. All those wonderful personality characteristics would serve that cave boy today as…

Okay, so you were so moved by the last lesson that you are sure you will not be successful timing the market and you’re sure there isn’t some investment expert or formula that can time the market either. Does this mean you are doomed as an investor? Let’s look at some real world data. This…

Would you like to become a millionaire? Well, then this is the lesson for you. I’m going to show you how you can time the market to quickly and easily become a millionaire. First things first. What does it mean to time the market? Okay, take out a stopwatch and – no, that would be…

What’s a professional investment manager and a huge meathead at the gym have in common? No pain, no gain! The buffed out beefcake wears this message on his muscle shirt, and the investment guy has this message in his brochure. No pain, no gain! In essence, if you want to do well, there is going…

This is a true story. It’s time to test your knowledge on the importance of asset allocation! A new client came to me because she wanted to do some retirement planning. She already had an investment advisor, but she wanted me to review her portfolio. In less than 30 seconds, I determined several things that…

This lesson will get me in trouble… We’ve spent several lessons on asset classes and asset allocation, but I’m going to let you in on a dirty little secret in the financial world that no one likes to admit to or talk about. Asset allocation, the process of choosing which asset classes and the amount…