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My Top 10 Most Read Posts of 2018

January 1, 2019 by Roger Wohlner Leave a Comment

I hope that 2018 was a good year for you and your families and that you’ve had a wonderful holiday season. For us it was great to have our three adult children home and to be able to spend time together as a family. We all ate way too much good food.

As far as the stock market, 2018 was certainly a volatile year, we will have to wait and see what 2019 holds for investors and those looking toward retirement.

Hopefully you find many of the posts here at The Chicago Financial Planner useful and informative as you chart your financial course. Whether you do your own financial planning and investing, or you work with a financial advisor, my goal is to educate and provide some food for thought.

In the spirit of all the top 10 lists we see at this time of year, here are my top 10 most read posts during 2018:

Is a $100,000 Per Year Retirement Doable?

Year-End 401(k) Matching – A Good Thing?

401(k) Fee Disclosure and the American Funds

4 Reasons to Accept Your Company’s Buyout Offer

Life Insurance as a Retirement Savings Vehicle – A Good Idea?

4 Benefits of Portfolio Rebalancing

7 Tips to Become a 401(k) Millionaire

Should You Accept a Pension Buyout Offer?

Five Things to do During a Stock Market Correction

Small Business Retirement Plans – SEP-IRA vs. Solo 401(k)

This past year saw me expand my freelance financial writing business, while continuing to serve a number of long-time financial advisory clients. I wrote a number of pieces for various financial services firms and other financial advisors over the past year. I’m looking forward to continuing to grow my business into 2019 and beyond.

Thank you for your readership and support. Please let know what you think about any of the posts on the site (good or bad) and please let me know if there are topics that you would like to see covered in 2019. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have via the contact form.

I wish you and your families a happy, healthy and prosperous 2019.

Approaching retirement and want another opinion on where you stand? Not sure if your investments are right for your situation? Concerned about stock market volatility? Check out my Financial Review/Second Opinion for Individuals service for detailed guidance and advice about your situation.

NEW SERVICE – Financial Coaching. Check out this new service to see if it’s right for you. Financial coaching focuses on providing education and mentoring in two areas: the financial transition to retirement or small business financial coaching.

FINANCIAL WRITING. Check out my freelance financial writing services including my ghostwriting services for financial advisors.

Please contact me with any thoughts or suggestions about anything you’ve read here at The Chicago Financial Planner. Don’t miss any future posts, please subscribe via email. Check out our resources page for links to some other great sites and some outstanding products that you might find useful.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: 401(k), Investing, retirement, Retirement planning, SEP-IRA

6 Investment Expenses You Need to Understand

October 1, 2018 by Roger Wohlner 5 Comments

Investment expenses reduce your investment returns. While nobody should expect investment managers, financial advisors or other service providers to offer their services for free, investors should understand all costs and fees involved and work to reduce their investment expenses to the greatest extent possible.

Here are 6 investment expenses you need to understand in order to maximize your returns.

Mutual fund and ETF expense ratios

All mutual fund and ETFs have expense ratios. These fees cover such things as trading costs, compensation for fund managers and support staff and the fund firm’s profit. Expense ratios matter and investors shouldn’t pay more than they need to.

Vanguard’s site, as you might expect, deals with this topic at length. In one example, it shows the impact of differing levels of fees on a hypothetical $100,000 initial account balance over 30 years with a yearly return of 6%. After 30 years the balance in the account would be:

$574,349 with no investment cost

$532,899 with an investment cost of 25 basis points

$438,976 with an investment cost of 90 basis points

These numbers clearly illustrate the impact of fund fees on an investor’s returns and their ability to accumulate assets for financial goals like retirement and funding their children’s college educations.

Mutual fund expense ratios are an example of where paying more doesn’t get you more. Case in point, Vanguard Value Index Adm (VVIAX) has an expense ratio of 0.05%. The Morningstar category average for the large cap value asset class is 1.03%. For the three years ending September 30, 2018 the fund ranked in the top 10% of all funds in the category; for the trailing five years it placed in the top 6% and for the trailing ten years it placed in the top 24% in terms of investment performance.

Sales loads and 12b-1 fees

Front-end sales loads are an upfront payment to a financial advisor or registered rep. Front-end sales loads reduce the amount of your initial investment that actually goes to work for you. For example, if a rep suggests investing in a mutual fund like the American Funds EuroPacific Growth A (AEPGX) for every $10,000 the investor wants to invest, $575 or 5.75% will be deducted from their initial investment balance to cover the sales load. Over time this will reduce the investor’s return versus another version of the same fund with a similar expense ratio that doesn’t charge a sales load.

Some will argue that this load is a one-time payment to the advisor and their firm for their advice. This strikes me as dubious at best, but investors need to decide for themselves whether the advice received in exchange for paying a sales load warrants this drain on their initial and subsequent investments. This share class has an expense ratio of 0.82% which includes a 12b-1 fee of 0.24% (see more on 12b-1 fees below).

Level loads are associated with C shares. The American Funds EuroPacific Growth C (AEPCX) fund has a level load of 1% in the form of a 12b-1 fee and an overall expense ratio of 1.60%. Brokers and registered reps love these as the level load stays in place for ten years until the funds convert to a no-load share class of the fund. There is a 1% surrender charge if the fund is redeemed within the first year of ownership.

12b-1 fees are a part of the mutual fund’s expense ratio and were originally designated to be marketing costs. They are now used as trialing compensation for financial advisors and reps who earn compensation from selling investment products. They can also be used to provide revenue-sharing in a 401(k) plan. While 12b-1 fees don’t increase expenses as they are part of the fund’s expense ratio, typically funds with a 12b-1 fee will have a higher expense ratio than those that don’t in my experience.

401(k) expenses

For many of us our 401(k) plan is our primary retirement savings vehicle. Beyond the expense ratios of the mutual funds or other investments offered, there are costs for an outside investment advisor (or perhaps a registered rep or broker who sold the plan) plus recordkeeping and administration among other things. If your employer has these costs paid by the plan they are coming out of your account and reducing the return on your investment.

Be sure to review the annual fee disclosures provided by your employer for your company’s plan for information on the plan’s expenses.

Financial advice fees

Fees for financial advice will vary depending upon the type of financial advisor you work with.

Fee-only financial advisors will charge fees for their advice only and not tied to any financial products they recommend. Fees might be charged on an hourly basis, on a project basis for a specific task like a financial plan, based on assets under management or a flat retainer fee. The latter two options would generally pertain to an ongoing relationship with the financial advisor.

Fee-based or fee and commission financial advisors will typically charge a fee for and initial financial plan and then sell you financial products from which they earn some sort of commission if you choose to implement their recommendations. Another version of this model might have the advisor charging a fee for investment management services, perhaps via a brokerage wrap account, and receiving commissions for selling any insurance or annuity products. They also would likely receive any trailing 12b-1 fees from the mutual funds used in the wrap account or from the sale of loaded mutual funds.

Commissions arise from the sale of financial and insurance products including mutual funds, annuities, life insurance policies and others. The financial advisor is compensated from the sale of the product and in one way or another you pay for this in the form of higher expenses and/or a lower net return on your investment.

Investors need to understand these fees and what they are getting in return. In fact, a great question to ask any prospective financial advisor is to have them disclose all sources of compensation that they will receive from their relationship with you.

Surrender charges

Surrender charges are common with annuities and some mutual funds. There will be a period of time where if the investor tries to sell the contract or the fund they will be hit with a surrender charge. I’ve seen surrender periods on some annuities that range out to ten years or more. If you decide the annuity is not for you or you find a better annuity, the penalty to leave is onerous and costly.

Taxes

Taxes are a fact of life and come into play with your investments. Investments held in taxable accounts will be taxed as either long or short-term when capital gains are realized. You may also be subject to taxes from distributions from mutual funds and ETFs for dividends and capital gains as well.

Investments held in a tax-deferred account such as a 401(k) or an IRA will not be taxed while held in the account but will be subject to taxes when distributions are taken.

Tax planning to minimize the impact of taxes on your investment returns can help, but investment decisions should not be made solely for tax reasons.

Fees and expenses can take a big bite out of your investment returns.

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The Bottom Line

Fees and expenses can take a big bite out of your investment returns and your ability to accumulate an amount sufficient to achieve your financial goals. Investors need to understand all costs and expenses associated with their investments and take steps to minimize these costs.

Approaching retirement and want another opinion on where you stand? Not sure if your investments are right for your situation? Need help getting on track? Check out my Financial Review/Second Opinion for Individuals service for detailed guidance and advice about your situation.

NEW SERVICE – Financial Coaching. Check out this new service to see if its right for you. Financial coaching focuses on providing education and mentoring in two areas: the financial transition to retirement or small business financial coaching.

FINANCIAL WRITING. Check out my freelance financial writing services including my ghostwriting services for financial advisors.

Please contact me with any thoughts or suggestions about anything you’ve read here at The Chicago Financial Planner. Don’t miss any future posts, please subscribe via email. Check out our resources page for links to some other great sites and some outstanding products that you might find useful.

Filed Under: Investing Tagged With: 401(k), Annuity, ETF, Financial Advisor, Investing, Mutual fund, Mutual fund fees and expenses

Are Best Mutual Fund Lists a Good Investing Tool?

June 11, 2017 by Roger Wohlner 7 Comments

We all like to read article with lists that rank things. Top colleges, top new cars, best and worst dressed and the like are just a few lists we see periodically. Mutual rankings have been around for a while. Many top personal finance publications such as Money Magazine, Kiplinger’s, and U.S. News publish such lists that rank mutual funds based upon performance. Are these Best Mutual Fund lists useful to you as an investor?

Best compared to what?

In order for any mutual fund ranking tool to be useful the comparison needs to be apples-to-apples. Comparing a large cap domestic stock fund to a fund that invests in gold mining companies is a pretty useless exercise. Make sure that you understand what is being compared and the basis for the rankings.

Past performance is not an indication of future performance

This is a pretty common disclaimer in the investment industry and it is one that should be heeded. Last year’s top mutual fund might finish on top again this year or it might end up at the bottom of the pack. This is especially true for actively managed mutual funds where results can often depend upon the manager’s investment style and whether or not their style is still in favor. Mutual funds that have a big year often find themselves inundated with new money from investors who chase performance, this influx of new money can make it harder for the manager to replicate their past success.

Who’s in charge?

It is not uncommon for a top mutual fund manager to be wooed by a rival fund company or for them to go off and start their own mutual fund. This is not such a big deal with index funds, but when looking at any actively managed fund be sure to understand whether or not the manager(s) who compiled the enviable track record are still in place.

What period of time is being used?

Make sure that you understand the time period used in the rankings. Returns over a single year can vary much more than returns compiled over a three, five, or ten year time period. Understand that one or two outstanding years can skew longer-term rankings. Longer periods of time tend to smooth out these blips in performance.

Why didn’t you tell me about this fund a year ago?

I recall looking at many of these lists over the years and wondering why the publication didn’t write about how wonderful the fund was a year ago before it chalked up this large gain. Well the answer is that this isn’t the job of the publication and they and most of us can’t really predict this.

Is looking at performance worthless?

No it isn’t but you need to look at performance in context. Look at performance over varying time periods and always in relation to the fund’s peers. Among the things to look at:

Risk adjusted performance
Performance in up and down markets
Performance over rolling periods of time
Adherence to the fund’s stated style
Costs and expenses
Consistency of relative performance
Changes in the level of assets in the fund

In short selecting and monitoring mutual funds is about more than looking for the top performers of the past. Like any other investment vehicle, mutual funds need to be viewed in terms of potential future performance and in terms of how they fit into your overall investment strategy and your financial plan.

Approaching retirement and want another opinion on where you stand? Do you want an independent review of your mutual fund holdings and your overall investment strategy? Check out my Financial Review/Second Opinion for Individuals service.

Please contact me with any thoughts or suggestions about anything you’ve read here at The Chicago Financial Planner. Don’t miss any future posts, please subscribe via email. Please check out the Hire Me tab to learn more about my freelance financial writing and financial consulting services.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Filed Under: Mutual Funds Tagged With: Index fund, Investing, Investment, Mutual fund

Reverse Churning Are You a Victim?

June 4, 2017 by Roger Wohlner 7 Comments

One of the best things about being a freelance financial writer and blogger is that I often learn new things in the course of my writing. A reader left a comment on a post here on the blog and mentioned reverse churning. Until that time, I had never heard this term, but after a bit of research I found that its’s one more thing that clients of stock brokers and registered reps need to be aware of.

The issue of reverse churning is one that will come to the forefront as the initial implementation of the DOL fiduciary rules commences next week. Here’s what you need to know about reverse churning to protect yourself and to make a good decision if your broker proposes a fee-based account.

What is churning?

Investopedia defines churning as “Excessive trading by a broker in a client’s account largely to generate commissions. Churning is an illegal and unethical practice that violates SEC rules and securities laws.”

Churning conjures images such as the boiler room in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross (actually they sold real estate) or the iconic 2002 ad by Charles Schwab (SCHW) in which a brokerage house manager is depicted as telling the brokers, “Let’s put some lipstick on this pig” in reference to a sub-par stock he wants them to pitch to clients.

What is reverse churning?

A 2014 piece by Daisy Maxey in The Wall Street Journal describes reverse churning as follows:

“The Securities and Exchange Commission says the practice of so-called “reverse churning”–putting investors in accounts that pay a fixed fee but generate little or no activity to justify that fee–is on its radar. Regulators will be watching for signs of double-dipping by advisers who generate significant commissions within a client’s brokerage account, then move that client into an advisory account and collect additional fees.”

This occurs in brokerage accounts that at one point generated significant commissions for the broker from the purchase and sale of individual stocks or other commission generating transactions. If the activity in the account tails off the broker makes little or nothing from this client.

As a way to generate ongoing fees from this type of client, the broker may suggest moving to a fee-based advisory account, often called a wrap account.

Under this arrangement there is an ongoing fee based upon the assets in the account plus often trailing commissions in the form of 12b-1 fees from the mutual funds usually offered in this type of account. These generally include proprietary mutual funds offered by the brokerage firm, or at the very least costly actively managed funds from other fund families in share classes geared to offering broker compensation.

Fee-based is not fee-only

Fee-based is often confused with fee-only. I suspect the brokerage industry likes it this way.

Fee-only compensation means that the financial advisor earns no compensation from the sale of financial products including trailing fees and commissions. Their fees come from their clients. These can be hourly, a flat-fee or as a percentage of the assets under management.

Fee-based compensation, also called fee and commission, is a mix of the two forms of advisor compensation. A common form of the fee-based model entails the client paying the advisor to do a financial plan and then if the client chooses to have the financial advisor implement their recommendations this will often be via the sale of commission-based products.

The version with fee-based advisory accounts associated with reverse churning by brokers and registered reps arose out of a 2007 rule that prohibits the charging of fees in brokerage accounts. Many broker-dealers have a registered investment advisor (RIA) arm which runs these accounts.

The fiduciary rule

The new fiduciary rules make fee-based accounts more desirable for brokers and other fee-based advisors. These types of accounts will become even more prevalent with the disclosures required for retirement accounts under the new rules.

There has been a movement towards fee-based accounts in the brokerage world for several years now, likely in anticipation of the eventual issuance of these rules. This movement should accelerate in IRAs. In some cases, this will be a good thing as clients will fully know what they are paying in terms of fees.

In other cases, clients will find themselves paying 100 basis points or more in wrap fees for accounts where they were formerly trading infrequently on a commissioned basis. Whether the fee-based account will be a better deal will vary.

If all they are getting is an expensive managed account filled with bad to mediocre mutual funds that charge high fees on top of the wrap fee, this is not a good deal. If the advisor does little more than collect a fee, this sounds like the definition of reverse churning based on my understanding of the term. Much will depend upon the level and types of advice clients receive for the fees they will now be paying.

Buyer beware

If you are working with a stock broker or registered rep and they propose moving to a fee-based or wrap account, you should take a hard look at what you are being offered. What is the wrap fee? What types of investments are used in the account? Are they expensive actively managed mutual funds that throw off 12b-1 fees in addition to wrap fees? What is the track record of the manager of the account that the advisor is proposing? What types of advice and service will you receive for the fees you will paying?

If your broker proposes a wrap account make sure this arrangement is in your best interest.

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The Bottom Line

I can’t recall hearing about a case of churning in recent years. Reverse churning is a new term to me, but from the perspective of a broker or registered rep, fee-based advisory accounts make a ton of sense. They provide ongoing fee income and frankly require little attention from them. If your broker proposes a wrap account, make sure you understand how this arrangement benefits you the client.

NEW SERVICE – Financial Coaching. Check out this new service to see if it’s right for you. Financial coaching focuses on providing education and mentoring on the financial transition to retirement.

FINANCIAL WRITING. Check out my freelance financial writing services including my ghostwriting services for financial advisors.

Filed Under: Investing Tagged With: Active management, fee-only, Financial Advisor, Investing, Mutual fund, Mutual fund fees and expenses

5 Tips to Manage Taxable Mutual Fund Distributions

November 7, 2016 by Roger Wohlner 2 Comments

With the end of the year in sight it’s time for year-end mutual fund distributions. If you hold mutual funds in taxable accounts, these distributions will be taxable to you.

Even with the weakness in the stock market to start the year, the Bexit vote in United Kingdom and recent pre-election weakness many mutual funds have gains embedded from a seven-year plus bull market.

Short of selling the funds, which may or may not a good idea, here are 5 tips to manage taxable mutual fund distributions.

Don’t buy the distribution

During November and December mutual fund companies will publish information about fund distributions on their websites. If you are looking to add to a position or start a new mutual fund position in a taxable account it is important that you know the dates of these distributions and take the anticipated distribution into account. You don’t want to buy a fund shortly before a significant distribution and then owe taxes on the distribution only having owned the fund for a short time.

Even if you reinvest distributions on mutual funds held in a taxable account the distributions are still taxable in the year received. These distributions can be added to your cost basis in fund which can take a bit of the sting out of this.

Consider tax-loss harvesting to offset capital gains distributions

As you go through your taxable accounts near the end of the year consider selling holdings with a loss to offset some of the capital gains distributions from your funds.

Just as with gains and losses generated from the sale of investments, long-term capital gains are matched against long-term capital losses and likewise with short-term capital gains and losses.

Tax-loss harvesting or any tax strategy should only be used if it makes sense from an investment point of view.

Use tax-loss harvesting only if it makes sense from an investment point of view.

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Index funds are not a cure-all for taxable mutual fund distributions

Index funds tracking standard broad-market indexes are generally pretty tax-efficient. That doesn’t mean that this will be the case each and every year. Further index funds and ETFs tracking small and mid-cap indexes may need to make more transactions in order to track their respective indexes.

As smart beta products become more popular they will likely be less tax-efficient than more common market-cap weighted index products. Smart beta funds will likely need to buy and sell more frequently in order to rebalance to the their underlying benchmark than more standard index products, potentially resulting in larger capital gains distributions.

Don’t let the tax tail wag the investment dog

While it is aggravating to receive large taxable mutual fund distributions, it is rarely a good idea to sell an investment holding solely for tax reasons.

Mutual fund distributions are one of three types:

Dividends
Short-term capital gains
Long-term capital gains

All three have different tax implications.

Ordinary dividends and short-term capital gains are taxed at your highest marginal ordinary income tax rate. Long-term capital gains are taxed at preferential rates ranging from 15% to 20% with higher income tax payers subject to the 3.8% Medicare tax. Qualified dividends are taxed at these same rates as well.

That said it is important to pay attention to the tax efficiency of the mutual funds that you are using in your taxable accounts.

Pay attention to the tax-efficiency of mutual funds held in taxable accounts.

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Consider distributions when looking to rebalance

Year-end is a good time to look at rebalancing your entire portfolio, both taxable and tax-deferred accounts. As you look to rebalance your portfolio consider reducing positions in taxable mutual fund holdings that continually throw off large distributions. If the fund is a good holding look for ways to own it in a tax-deferred account if possible.

The decision with regard to the taxable portion of your portfolio always involves taxes to one extent or another. If you were looking to reduce your position in the fund anyway it can make sense to sell it prior to the record date for this year’s capital gains distribution. If selling the fund would result in a capital gain, offsetting the gain against a realized loss on another holding could be a good strategy.

The Bottom Line

With the gains in the stock market over the past few years many investors may find themselves the recipient of large distributions this year in spite of weakness in the markets over the course of the past year. When possible consider tax-efficiency when buying mutual funds in a taxable account.

Photo credit: Pixobay

Filed Under: Mutual Funds Tagged With: ETF, Index fund, Investing, Mutual fund

3 Financial Products to Consider Avoiding

September 5, 2016 by Roger Wohlner 33 Comments

Before buying ANY financial product make sure that this product is right for you in terms of your unique, personal financial situation. Financial products are tools and just like your projects around the house you should use the right tool for the job, not the tool that the financial rep wants to sell to you.

Here are three financial products that you should consider avoiding.

Equity-Indexed Annuities

Equity-Indexed Annuities are an insurance-based product where the returns are tied to some portion of the performance of an underlying market index such as the S&P 500. They are also called fixed-index insurance products and indexed annuities. Your gains are limited to a portion of what the index gains and there is generally some sort of minimum return to limit (or eliminate) your risk of loss. As you can imagine these were pitched heavily to Baby Boomers and retirees after the last market downturn and are still being sold based upon fear today.

Two problems here are generally high internal expenses and surrender charges that keep you locked in the product for years. Worse yet, these internal expenses can be hard to isolate. If you decide to go ahead with the purchase of an Equity-Indexed Annuity be sure that you understand all of the details including the level of index participation, expenses, surrender charges, and the health of the underlying insurance company. Check out FINRA’s Investor Alert regarding Equity-Indexed Annuities for more cautionary information.

Proprietary Mutual Funds

It is not uncommon for registered reps and brokers to suggest mutual funds from the family run by their employer. In many cases they are incentivized or even required to do so. While some of these funds are perfectly fine, all too often in my experience they are not. Whether via high fees and/or low performance these are often investments to be avoided.

A lawsuit against Ameriprise Financial brought by a group of participants in the company’s retirement plan alleged the company breached its Fiduciary duty by offering a number of the firm’s own funds in the plan and that these funds then paid fees back to Ameriprise and some of its subsidiaries as revenue sharing. The suit was ultimately settled.

JP Morgan also settled a suit by some retail investors over the bank steering clients into their more expensive proprietary funds over those of other families.

Load Mutual Funds

It is important that you understand the ABCs of mutual fund share classes. In the commissioned/fee-based world reps often sell mutual funds that offer compensation to them and to their broker-dealers. A shares charge an up-front commission plus a trailing fee (often a 12b-1) of somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.25% or more.

B shares charge no up-front commissions, but carry an additional back-end load as part of the ongoing expense ratio. This can amount to an addition 0.75% or more added to the fund’s annual expenses. In addition these shares also contain a surrender charge that typically starts at 5% if your sell the fund before the end of the surrender period. B shares have been largely phased out by most fund providers.

C shares typically have a permanent 1% level load added to the fund’s expense ratio and carry a one year surrender period.

These sales loads ultimately reduce the amount of your investment and are an expensive form of advice. Nobody expects financial advisors or any other professional to provide financial advice for free. Unless the person to whom you are paying these pricey loads is providing extraordinary advice, this is a very expensive way to go.

The DOL fiduciary rules

The fiduciary rules introduced by the DOL (Department of Labor) in April of 2016 impose a far greater level of disclosure on financial advisors. The rules require financial advisors to act as fiduciaries when providing advice to clients on their retirement accounts such as IRAs.

The fiduciary rules require advisors to have their client sign a disclosure document for many financial products with sales charges and trailing commissions if used in a retirement account. Load mutual funds and proprietary mutual funds will most likely require a BICE (Best Interest Contract Exemption) disclosure. Additionally Equity-Indexed Annuities were not exempted from these disclosures in the final draft of the rules as they had been in earlier drafts.

It will remain to be seen how the fiduciary rules will impact these three products, both within retirement accounts and overall. As an example, broker Edward Jones recently announced that mutual funds and ETFs will no longer be offered to clients in retirement accounts where commissions are charged.

Before making any financial or investment decision review your specific situation. Consult a fee-only financial advisor if you feel that you need financial advice.

Approaching retirement and want another opinion on where you stand? Not sure if you are invested properly for your situation? Check out my Financial Review/Second Opinion for Individuals service.

Please contact me with any thoughts or suggestions about anything you’ve read here at The Chicago Financial Planner. Don’t miss any future posts, please subscribe via email. Please check out the Hire Me tab to learn more about my freelance financial writing and financial consulting services.

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Photo credit: Flickr

Filed Under: Investing Tagged With: Ameriprise Financial, Equity-indexed annuity, fee-only, Fidelity, Fiduciary, Investing, Mutual fund, Vanguard

Avoid these 9 Investing Mistakes

July 10, 2016 by Roger Wohlner 18 Comments

Investing is at best a risky proposition and sometimes even the best investment ideas don’t work out. However avoiding these 9 mistakes can help improve your investing outcomes.

Inability to take a loss and move on

It’s difficult for many investors to sell an investment at a loss. Often they prefer to wait until the investment at least gets back to a break-even level. I think its part of our competitive nature. Investing is not a competitive sport, leave that for our Olympians. When reviewing your investments ask yourself “Would I buy this holding today?” If the answer is no, it’s time to sell and invest the proceeds elsewhere.

Not selling winners

I’ve seen many investors over the years refuse to sell highly appreciated holdings, all or in part. There is always the risk that you’ll sell and the price will keep going up. But sometimes it’s best to protect your gains and sell while you’re ahead or at least consider selling a portion of the holding and reinvesting the proceeds elsewhere. The latter can be part of your portfolio rebalancing process.

Investing without a plan

When you take a road trip in your car you generally have a map to help you to get to your destination. Investing is a means to an end, a road map to achieve your goals such as providing a college education for your children or funding your retirement.

Without a financial plan how will you know how much you need to accumulate to achieve your goals? How much risk should you take? What types of returns do you need to shoot for? Are on track toward your goals? Essentially investing without a plan is much like hopping in the car without any idea where you are headed.

Trying to time the market

It’s difficult to predict when the market will rise and fall. Even if the stock market is following a general trend, there will be up and down trading days. Trying to buy and sell based on those daily fluctuations is difficult. While there are professional traders who do this for a living, for most of us this is a losing proposition.

Worrying too much about taxes

Taxes can consume a significant portion of your investment gains for holdings in a taxable account. While nobody wants to pay more tax than needed, in my opinion paying taxes on a gain is almost always better than dealing with an investment loss.

Not paying attention to your investments

Your portfolio needs to be evaluated and monitored on a periodic basis. You should reevaluate a stock when the company changes management, when the company is acquired by or merges with another company, when a strong competitor enters the market, or when several top executives sell large blocks of stock.

This applies to mutual funds as well. Manager changes, a dramatic increase or decrease in assets under management or a deviation from its stated style should all be red flags that cause you to evaluate whether it may be time to sell the fund.

Failure to rebalance your holdings

This goes hand in hand with having a financial plan. Ideally you have an investment policy for your portfolio that defines the percentage allocations of your investments by type and style (stocks, bonds, cash, large stocks, international stocks, etc.). A typical investment policy will set a target percentage with upper and lower percentage ranges for each style. It is important that you look at your overall portfolio in terms of these percentages at least annually.

Different investment styles will perform differently at various times. This can cause your portfolio to be out of balance. The idea behind rebalancing is to control risk. If stocks rally and your equity allocation has grown to 75% vs. your target of 60% your portfolio is now taking more risk than you had planned. Should stocks reverse course, you could be exposed to over-sized losses.

Assuming recent events will continue into the future

The first 15 plus years of this century have been tough on investors. The market tumbled during the 2000-2002 time frame and then again in 2008-2009. More recently the stock market dropped steeply and suddenly in the wake of the Bexit vote in the U.K. These events have instilled fear into many investors. It’s hard to blame them.

However this fear and the assumption that recent events will continue into the future might also be keeping you from investing in the fashion needed to achieve your financial goals. Taking the events of recent years into account is healthy, however letting these events paralyze you can be destructive to your financial future. This holds true for stock market drops as well as protracted bull markets.

Building a collection of investments instead of a well-crafted portfolio

Are you investing with a plan or do you simply own a collection of investments? Great football teams like my beloved Green Bay Packers have a better chance of winning when everyone embraces and executes their role in the game plan for that week. In my experience you will increase your chances for investment success when all of the holdings in your portfolio fulfill their role as well.

Nothing guarantees investment success. Avoiding these 9 investing mistakes as well as others can help you increase your odds of being a successful investor.

Concerned about stock market volatility? Approaching retirement and want another opinion on where you stand? Not sure if your investments are right for your situation? Need help getting on track? Check out my Financial Review/Second Opinion for Individuals service for detailed guidance and advice about your situation.

FINANCIAL WRITING. Check out my freelance financial writing services including my ghostwriting services for financial advisors.

Filed Under: Investing Tagged With: Asset allocation, Financial plan, Green Bay Packers, Investing, Investment, Mutual fund, rebalancing, risk, Stock

Brexit and Your Portfolio

June 26, 2016 by Roger Wohlner 4 Comments

As you are most likely aware, the U.K. voted to leave the European Union. The so-called Brexit vote was a surprise to many and caused a swift, severe and negative reaction in the world financial markets.

On Friday June 24, the S&P 500 lost about 3.6% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost about 3.4% of its value. There may be more pain in the days ahead, only time will tell.

As an individual investor what should you do when the stock market drops?

This isn’t new

While the Brexit is a new issue, we’ve seen plenty of market disruptions before. The stock market crash of October 19, 1987 saw the market drop 22.61%. The correction following the Dot Com bust and 9/11 was severe as was the market decline in the wake of the 2008 financial crises. The markets recovered nicely in all cases and even with Friday’s declines the S&P 500 is about three times higher than it was at the depths of the market in March of 2009.

A good time to do nothing

While everyone’s situation is different, the vast majority of investors would be wise to do nothing in the wake of these market declines. Panicking and withdrawing money from your accounts may feel good now, but you’ll likely regret it down the road.

Investors nearing retirement who sold their equity holdings near the depths of the financial crises in late 2008 or early 2009 realized large losses, then sat on the sidelines during some or all of the ensuing market recovery. Their retirement dreams are in shambles because they panicked.

Some strategies to consider

Once the dust settles a bit, here are a few things you might consider:

Rebalancing your portfolio. Especially if the markets continue their downward trend for a few more days or weeks it is likely that your portfolio will become underweight in equities. This is a good time to rebalance back to your target asset allocation. Rebalancing forces a level of discipline on investors, in this case buying when equities have fallen.

Tax-loss selling. In the course of rebalancing and reviewing your portfolio, you may have some holdings in your taxable account that have dropped below their cost basis. Look to sell some of them to realize the loss. Be sure to understand the wash-sale rules if you intend to buy these holdings back. Above all ensure that any asset sales make good investment sense, as the saying goes “…don’t let the tax tail wag the investment dog…”

Recharacterize a Roth conversion. If you have converted traditional IRA dollars to a Roth IRA and the value of these converted dollars has fallen you are entitled to a do-over or recharacterization. You generally have until October 15 of the year following the year in which the conversion took place. The assets that are recharacterized cannot immediately be converted back to a Roth, there is generally at least a 30 day waiting period. In other words if you did a conversion in 2015 you would have until October 15, 2016 (or the latest tax filing date including extensions).

If the value of the assets that you converted has fallen appreciably, there can be significant tax savings to be realized here. These rules are complex so be sure that you know what you are doing or that you seek the advice of a knowledgeable tax or financial advisor.

The Bottom Line

Event-driven market declines such as we’ve seen (and may continue to see) via the Brexit vote are often swift and severe in nature. For most investors the best course of action is no action. Once the dust has settled a bit review your portfolio and make adjustments and tweaks that make sense in a thoughtful, controlled fashion.

Filed Under: Investing Tagged With: Brexit, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Investing, retirement, S&P 500

The Bull Market Turns Seven Now What?

March 10, 2016 by Roger Wohlner 4 Comments

On March 9, 2009 the market downturn fueled by the financial crisis bottomed out as measured by the S&P 500 Index. On that day the index closed at 677. Yesterday, on the bull market’s seventh birthday, the index closed at 1,989 or an increase of about 194 percent. According to CNBC the Dow Jones Industrial Average has increased 160 percent and the NASDAQ 267 percent over this seven-year time frame.

With the bull market turning seven, now what? Here are some thoughts and ideas for investors.

How does this bull market stack up?

According to data from the most recent quarterly Guide to the Markets report from JP Morgan Asset Management, the average bull market following a bear market lasts for 53 months and results in a gain of 153%. By both measures this bull market is a long one.

Does this mean that investors should brace for an imminent market correction? Not necessarily but bull markets don’t last forever either.

There have been some speed bumps along the way, including 2011, a sharp decline in the third quarter of 2015 and of course the sharp declines we saw to start off 2016. Again this is not an indicator of anything about the future.

Winners and losers

A commentator on CNBC cited a couple of big winners in this bull market:

Netflix (NFLX) +1,667%
General Growth Properties (GGP) +9,964%

Additionally, Apple (APPL) closed at a split-adjusted $11.87 per share on March 9, 2009. It closed at $101.12 on March 9, 2016.

The CNBC commentator cited giant retailer Walmart (WMT) as a stock that has missed much of the bounce in this market, as their stock is up only 42% over this time period.

What should investors do now?

None of us knows what the future will hold. The bull market may be getting long of tooth. There are factors such as potential actions by the Fed, China’s impact on our markets, the threat of terrorism and countless others that could impact the direction of the stock market. It seems there is always something to worry about in that regard.

That all said, my suggestions for investors are pretty much the same “boring” ones that I’ve been giving since I started this blog in 2009.

Control the factors that you can control. Your investment costs and your asset allocation are two of the biggest factors within your control.
Review and rebalance your portfolio This is a great way to ensure that your allocation and your level of risk stay on track.
When in doubt fall back on your financial plan. Review your progress against your plan periodically and, if warranted, adjust your portfolio accordingly.
Contribute to your 401(k) plan and make sure that your investment choices are appropriate for your time horizon and risk tolerance. Avoid 401(k) loans if possible and don’t ignore old 401(k) accounts when leaving a company.
Don’t overdo it when investing in company stock.
If you need professional financial help, get it. Be sure to hire a fee-only financial advisor who will put your interests first.

Investing – control the factors under your control – costs and asset allocation

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The Bottom Line

The now seven-year bull market since the bottom in 2009 has been a very robust period for investors. Many have more than recovered from their losses during the market decline of 2008-09.

Nobody knows what will happen next. In my opinion, investors are wise to control the factors that they can, have a plan in place and follow that plan.

Filed Under: Investing Tagged With: Asset allocation, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Financial Planning, Investing, Investment, Nasdaq Composite, S&P 500

20 Best Investing Blogs of 2016 – The College Investor

March 9, 2016 by Roger Wohlner 2 Comments

I am very flattered to be included in this list of the 20 Best Investing Blogs of 2016 compiled by Robert Farrington on his outstanding blog The College Investor, with it’s tagline “Investing and Personal Finance for Millennials.”

20 Best Investing Blogs of 2016

I know and follow many of these people and read their blogs on a regular basis. There were a few that were new to me and I plan to add their blogs to my regular reading list as well. If you like to read about investing and financial topics this list is a great place to start.

Jim Blankenship, Financial Ducks In A Row

Josh Brown, The Reformed Broker

Ben Carlson, A Wealth of Common Sense

Kathryn Cicoletti, Ms. Cheat Sheet

Jim Dahle, The White Coat Investor

Sam Dogen, Financial Samurai

Eddy Elfenbein, Crossing Wall Street

Michael Kitces, Nerd’s Eye View

Larry Ludwig, Investor Junkie

Michael Piper, Oblivious Investor

Ben Reynolds, Sure Dividend

Barry Ritholtz, The Big Picture