Your safe easy way to wealth building is to consider the financial life of family and friends and to make informed choices about who you can learn from amongst them. And more importantly - What You Can Learn.
The rule you should follow is if they havn’t been on the wealth building journey you want to begin then they have little to teach you. The reason behind this is that no one can ever successfully take you on a journey which they have not themselves been on.
There will be family members - perhaps an uncle who has built up a sizeable net worth - who have learned wealth building tips and tricks they would be willing to impart to you.
Now you’re ready for the key steps in the “Safe Easy Way” .
Step 1 is to Identify your Best Wealth Building Mentor
Step 2 is to Develop a Relationship with Them
Step 3 is to Ask them for Referrals to Key Players in their wealth building experience
Step 4 is to Prove to Your new found Mentor that You Followed Their Advice and Profited
Step 5 is to Show Your Mentor You’re Prepared to Help Others Succeed
It’s important to realize this is not a quick safe easy way to wealth building. There is no promise of overnight success. In fact if you rush your mentor when moving from Step 2 to Step 3 then they’ll most likely drop you like a hot potato.
Suddenly they will not return your calls or answer you emails. So be patient. Let them lead you through the development of your mentoring relationship.
Show them respect. Respect their time. Respect their talent. Respect their corrections. Respect their views of your business plans.
Follow these steps and you will be successfully working the Wealth Building -A Safe Easy Way method.
Copyright 2006 Kenneth Little
Kenneth Little is a writer, teacher, public speaker and the publisher of a re-released classic - in a revealing ebook- that will show you how to get the best of health and wealth out of all your future years. Find more on this at:
http://www.Young-at-Sixty.com
True success will be yours no matter what your age. Amazing “How I Became Young at Sixty” brings renewed strength to your body, hope to your mind and increased prosperity to your lifestyle.
You Can Get your Free ebook “How I Became Young at Sixty” by going to:
http://www.Young-at-Sixty.com/get-your-f-r-e-e-ebook.htm
April 28th, 2008 by admin
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Be very diligent around the open. Trades accumulate before the bell and once the market opens the market makers get to work on this stack of orders. Traders often do not know the quanity of orders out there waiting and whether or not they are buys or sells. This makes it very tough to tell where the stock is headed in the minutes after the open or how long it will take for orders to be filled. If your stock is trading for the first time or has been volatile, it can have tumultuous opening minutes. Once the market is open you have a better and clearer idea of what is happening.
If you are used to having order confirmations within seconds, be careful about canceling if minutes go by without a confirmation. Your trade may have been executed even if the confimation is late. Result: unwanted duplicate orders can pile up.
Think about the price you are willing to pay before ever entering an order and use an order type that takes that into account, instead of canceling when your stock moves out of your range. Check with your broker, some offer cancel/replace orders so if your order has not been executed, it is canceled and automatically replaced with a new order. If your order has been executed, the replacement order is canceled.
Don’t use the same type of order for evey trading situation. You need to think about if you want the stock at any price or do you want it because it is a good value at a certain price.
You have to see what is going on with the market and match your choice up with that at the time. Every trade contains a compromise.
As you know a “market order”, which is an order to buy or sell at the best available price, takes precedence over all others. It will get filled eventually and with some online brokers they are cheaper than other types of orders. Market orders are good under the following situations: if the stock trades on an even keel; you really want the stock; or you are looking to make a long term investment.
The risk you run is getting filled at a price far from the price the stock was trading at when you placed your order. And if your stock is really bouncing around erratically, a market order can give you a very unpleasant surprise! You may see limited market orders by some brokers in early trading of certain IPO’s.
Traders have a slew of orders to limit the price they are willing to pay for a stock or the length of time they are willing to wait for a fill.
You should look at all your options and refer to the report on “orders” you received when you became a paid member. And remember that acceptable orders vary between brokers, call their customer service reps and/or check out their education sections on the Web sites.
More FREE trading tips at: http://lb.bcentral.com/ex/manage/subscriberprefs?customerid=12826
Then visit our sister site for even more great trading tips at: http://fastprofits.blogspot.com
March 30th, 2008 by admin
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You’re retired - so now what? Hopefully you have spent the majority of your adult life appropriately budgeting, investing, and otherwise planning for retirement, and can spend the entirety of your golden years sailing around the globe on a well-appointed and professionally staffed yacht. Unfortunately, most throughout our nation will not live out their senior years quite this luxuriously, due largely to minimal, off-target, downright shoddy, or a complete lack of retirement-specific financial planning. Or, perhaps it’s due to the rampant “here today, gone tomorrow” pension plans that have plagued corporate America.
What, then, can get our burgeoning senior population to the financial promise land - or at least able to live out a comfortable retirement - particularly if their pension plan nest eggs gets scrambled? Senior Financial Coach Hank Parrott, President of Estate & Financial Strategies, Inc., offers these ten fundamental, though key, strategies for retirement-based financial planning, which can and should be implemented by young and old alike in working to secure their financial future whether or not they are part of any pension plan:
o Know where your money is. You probably have your retirement resources in a number of different accounts: 401(k)s and similar plans, IRAs, non-retirement accounts, your home, annuities, CDs, and other places. In addition, you may have other sources of retirement income and/or assets such as that from Social Security and company pension plans, which have been riddled with problems of late, as well as stock options, and life insurance policies.
o Do a “needs analysis”. Determine your required retirement budget by reviewing your traditional, retirement income sources, such as pension plans and Social Security that may or may not be meeting your expectation; your employer-sponsored plans; and personal investments in stocks, bonds, and other investments. Contrast that with potential expenses such as that for medical, insurance, prescription medication, and long term care. Ensure that you can cover these possibilities on your own, without the aid of employer-based benefits.
o Make assets work for you. Forget about using the traditional “risk tolerance” assessment profiles or programs. While this approach may have worked well before retirement, you need to know your money is secure and that you have an adequate retirement income stream. That means taking a whole new approach to asset allocation, which will provide a stable, predictable retirement income stream with minimal risk exposure.
o Estate planning is mandatory, not optional. How many times have you heard it said, the only things in life that are certain are death and taxes? When it comes to retirement and estate planning, that truism is very appropriate. Estate planning consists of many actions, with almost all having three primary and oh-so-important purposes: to protect your privacy, to reduce taxes, and to make probate simple for your heirs. There are five essential documents for estate planning: Revocable Living Trust, Pour Over Will, General Durable Power of Attorney, Power of Attorney for Health Care, and a Living Will.
o Plan for taxes: an unavoidable, though containable, reality. During your lifetime you pay many different types of taxes: Federal, state, local, property, use, auto, business, capital gains, and on and on. When you die you may also have to pay federal and state taxes. Taxes don’t end when you die. That means planning for taxes both during your retirement, and after your death. Failing to plan can result in some horrendous tax bills, penalties, and interest.
o Near term planning for long term care. Develop a plan for long-term care because it is expensive and can quickly deplete your retirement funds. It is important to educate yourself in advance on the type of long-term care, the ways to pay for it without using all your assets, the limitations of programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, and the provisions involved in long-term care insurance.
o Benefit from built in guarantees. Consider the power that equity index annuities (EIAs) can play in guaranteeing principle while maximizing retirement income. EIAs have many of the advantages of the market but without the inherent risks. One of the best benefits of an EIA is safety and its ability to accumulate money with guarantees of principal.
o Prudently extend investment allocations. Consider investing in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, but assure an approach that involves proper diversification and asset allocation which are key investing strategies. Risk management is achieved by managing your overall percentage of equities, being diversified, and allocating assets (rebalancing and shifting to maintain the appropriate investment strategy).
o Don’t be derailed by details. There are many “little” things you can do to make your retirement planning and estate planning less complicated. Titling assets properly and naming the proper beneficiaries are just two of the many smaller things that can have a large impact on your financial plan. Keep a good record of all your assets, debts, and other obligations together in one location. Know what to keep in a safety deposit box and what to keep at home. Make sure everything is kept up to date by revising all information at least every three to five years, or sooner if you’ve experienced a major life event.
o Ask an expert. Choose a financial advisor who specializes in working with retirees to position and/or reposition their assets to preserve and maximize their retirement income stream, minimize taxes, and reduce overall portfolio risk. This specialist should be able to help you with referrals for other essential advisors, including elder law attorneys, estate planning attorneys, tax specialists, and senior advocates.
Parrott notes, “Ensuring a comfortable retirement in today’s volatile business and investment climate is not always easy, but it is quite doable. By carefully analyzing your available assets and resources, and making strategic adjustments in the types of investments you own, you can both preserve your hard-earned assets and have the retirement income stream that meets, and perhaps even exceeds, your needs.”
Senior Financial Coach Hank Parrott, ChFC, RFC, CEP, CSA is President of Estate & Financial Strategies, Inc. (EFS) - a financial services firm dedicated to helping seniors safely preserve, protect and proliferate their assets. He can be reached through his Web site at http://www.SeniorFinancialCoach.com or via toll-free telephone at (800) 492-8102.
March 29th, 2008 by admin
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After some forty years of banking and investments, I retired in 2001. But since I do not golf, I soon found retirement to be very boring. So I decided to return to the investment world after ten months. However, those ten months were not a complete waste of time, for I had spent them in trying to utilize my forty years of investment experience to gain perspective on the most recent stock market “bubble” and subsequent “crash.”
There were several people who saw the stock market crash coming, but they had different ideas as to when it would occur. Those who were too early had to suffer the derision of their peers. It was difficult to take a stand when so many were proclaiming that we were in a “new era” of investing and that the old rules no longer applied. Since the beginning of 1998 through the market high of March 2000, among 8,000 stock recommendations by Wall Street analysts, only 29 recommended
“sell.”
I am on record as having called for a cautious approach to investment two years before the “Crash of 2000.” In an in-house investment newsletter dated April 1998, I have a picture of the “Titanic” with the caption: “Does anyone see any icebergs?”
When I resumed employment in 2002, I happened to glance at the chart on the last page of Value Line, which showed the stock market as having topped out, by coincidence, in April 1998, the same date as my “Titanic” newsletter! The Value Line Composite Index reached a high of 508.39 on April 21, 1998 and has been lower EVER SINCE! But on the first page of the same issue, the date of the market high was given as “5-22-01″! When I contacted Value Line about this discrepancy , I was surprised to learn that they had changed their method of computing the index for “market highs” from “geometric” to “arithmetic.” They said they would change the name of the Value Line “Composite” Index to the Value Line “Geometric” Index, since that is how it has been computed over the years. Currently Value Line is showing a recent market low on 10-9-02 and the most recent market high, based on this new “arithmetic” index, on 4-5-04, ANOTHER ALL-TIME HIGH! If they had stayed with the original “geometric” index, the all-time high would still be April 21, 1998!
Later that year, I was pleasantly surprised to read in “Barron’s” an interview with Ned Davis, of Ned Davis Research, that said that his indicators had picked up on the bear market’s beginnings in April 1998, the same date as my “Titanic” newsletter! So, my instincts were correct! I believe that we are in a “secular” downturn that began in April 1998 and the “Bubble of 2000″ was a market rally in what was already a long-term bear market.
Another development transpired soon after I resumed employment in 2002. I happened to notice one day that, in its “Market Laboratory,” “Barron’s” had inexplicably changed the P/E Ratio of the S&P 500 to 28.57 from 40.03 the previous week! This was due to a change to “operating” earnings of $39.28 from “net” or “reported ” earnings of $28.31 the previous week. I and others wrote to “Barron’s Mailbag” to complain about this change and to disagree with it, since these new P/E ratios could not be compared with historical P/Es. “Barron’s apparently accepted our arguments and, about two months later, changed back to using “reported” earnings instead of “operating” earnings and revised the S&P 500 data to show a P/E Ratio of 45.09 compared to a previous week’s 29.64.
But a similar problem occurred the next day in a sister publication to “Barron’s.” On April 9, 2002, “The Wall Street Journal” came out with a new format that included, for the first time, charts and data for the Nasdaq Composite, S&P 500 Index and Russell 2000, in addition to its own three Dow Jones indices. The P/E Ratio for the S&P 500 was given as 26, instead of the 45.09 now found in “Barron’s.” I wrote to the WSJ and after much correspondence back and forth, they finally accepted my argument and on July 29, 2002 changed the P/E Ratio for the S&P 500 from 19 to 30! I had given them examples showing where some financial writers had inadvertently confused “apples” with “oranges” by comparing their P/E of 19, based on “operating” earnings, with the long-term average P/E of 16, based on “reported” earnings.
Because I started to be cautious about investing as early as April 1998, since I thought that price/earnings ratios for the stock market were perilously high, I was not hurt personally by the “Crash of 2000″ and had tried to get my clients into less aggressive and more liquid positions in their investment portfolios. But the pressures to go along with the market were tremendous!
Price/earnings ratios do not enable us to “time the market.” But comparing them to past historical performance does enable us to tell when a stock market is high and vulnerable to eventual correction, even though others around us may have lost their bearings. High P/Es alert us to a need for caution and a conservative approach in our investment decisions, such as a renewed emphasis on dividends. Very high P/Es usually indicate a long-term bear market may ensue for a very long period of time. We are apparently in such a long-term bear market now. But in determining whether the market is high, we must be vigilant with regard to what data mambers of the financial press are reporting to us, so we can compare “apples” with “apples.” When the financial information does not appear to be correct, we, as financial analysts, owe it to the investment community to challenge such information. That is what I have concluded from my personal “odyssey” in the investment world.
After three years of the DJIA and the S&P 500 closing below their previous year-end figures, the market finally closed higher at the end of 2003. But the P/E ratio is still high for both indices.
Does anyone see any icebergs?
Henry V. Janoski, MBA, CFA, CSA is a 1955 graduate ‘magna cum laude” of Yale University and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He received his MBA in finance and banking from the Wharton Graduate Business School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1960 and holds the professional designations of Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and Certified Senior Advisor (CSA). As a registered investment advisor representative with the title of Senior Investment Officer, he is located in Scranton, PA. His biography is listed in “Who’s Who in Finance and Industry” and in “Who’s Who in America.” E-mail address: HJanoski@aol.com
March 21st, 2008 by admin
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