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I am very grateful for those who took the time to be so helpful in sharing their expertize and to provide specific details and strategies..
I spoke to my FP yesterday because of my belief that I had lost 5.4% on one Fidelity IRA.
The situation is not as dire as I had believed as she had moved money out of that account to make another more aggressive investment... in gas and oil , unfortunately!!
She probably informed me of this but I wasn't sure what account she had removed it from.
The account made 3% return on the year. Not as good as some certainly, but not a loss.
What I am taking away from this and from you all, is that it is time to make the effort to educate myself and keep track on line of my accounts. I need to know the questions to ask my FP. I am not a passive person in any other area and I have neglected this for too long and it is just too important to continue in ignorance.
I know where to come to ask questions and get them answered.
Is she doing trades in your account on her own ?
Did you give her power of attorney ?
I suggest you find someone to help you understand just how exactly your accounts are set up.
A new third party independent financial planner to look over your currently financial set up.
My MIL thought she had a "financial planner" as well. She knew nothing of finances and after my FIL died she had no clue what was going on and saw she was losing money every month. Turns out that her "financial planner" was nothing more than a broker who was churning her account.
She's now really with a financial planner and my SIL has power of attorney over the account and gets copies of the monthly statements.
Fidelity's S&P 500 index fund is as good as Vanguard's.
For a person just starting to manage their own investments I really like Fidelity. They have offices in most large cities so she can make an appointment with a representative.
For each account obtain information about your holdings and how they are titled. Then take an in-depth look at each holding and form an opinion about whether or not it is suitable for you.
We are retired, well into the minimum required distribution phase of life and moved from Fidelity to Vanguard. In our regular IRA's we hold Wellesley Income and Realty Income Corp (O). Wellesley hasn't gained much this year in large part because it is 66% bonds. We also hold Wellington (33% bonds) and index funds in a Roths.
The situation is not as dire as I had believed as she had moved money out of that account to make another more aggressive investment... in gas and oil , unfortunately!!
I am very grateful for those who took the time to be so helpful in sharing their expertize and to provide specific details and strategies..
What I am taking away from this and from you all, is that it is time to make the effort to educate myself and keep track on line of my accounts. I need to know the questions to ask my FP. I am not a passive person in any other area and I have neglected this for too long and it is just too important to continue in ignorance.
I know where to come to ask questions and get them answered.
This is all terrible. I feel sorry for the financial advisers that are working one on one with clients. Unfortunately, some don't deserve sympathy because they are doing nothing useful for society. "Aggressive" in this period generally means buying more oil and gas when the prices and margins erode. There are strong cyclical trends in commodity pricing which can drive share prices lower.
Honestly the single most important area for a financial planner to add value is convincing the investor to keep their money in the market when it drops and to buy stocks instead of another new ****ing car. The whole reason to pay that adviser is to have someone there to stop the investor from ruining themselves. When it comes to diversification, a fee only planner can set it up by meeting with the investor every year and updating their IPS (investment policy statement).
Yes, I'm a financial analyst. No, I'm not doing crap for your portfolio. I happened to click the post and thought I would help, but I'm not getting paid to solve these problems.
Just remember you do not want to jump in and out of the market and keep switching investments.
I would do all I could to learn about asset allocations etc by reading the brokerage and mutual fund sites and maybe even take an online investment course or two.
I think you would also be better served by looking at your investments every 3 to 6 months instead of daily.
The second link is Northern Trust's five year outlook for the markets. Think low returns in general. If you are lucky enough to pick higher returning funds, more power to you. It would seem one should expect low returns when simply investing in market index funds.
Also, it looks like PonyTrekker is providing 1Yr returns, not YTD returns. I'm with Fidelity and I thought those returns looked very high. For example, the Fidelity Municipal Income Fund is returning only .7% YTD and Fidelity Mega Cap Stock Fund is returning 2.24% YTD.
Last edited by mitchmiller9; 08-06-2015 at 02:28 AM..
Also, it looks like PonyTrekker is providing 1Yr returns, not YTD returns.
Correct. These two quotes suggested to me we were looking at losses not just for 2015:
Quote:
My problem is that the portfolio seems to have lost ground over this last year with no significant increase. I shall know more specifically when I meet for my next review when I want a percentage gain or loss figure.
When I expressed slight concern before I was reassured that we had bought low and should hold on as we can ride the inevitable upward wave: the analogy is mine, not hers.
Thank you for your patience so far. Here are my two questions: first, what kind of return might I have expected last year.
I had a meeting with our FP a few days ago. He took all of our numbers - mortgage, income, accounts with him, accounts elsewhere (401Ks), insurance, expenses, etc - and produced a report with projections that make me feel pretty good about where we are headed and how we might do in retirement. My largest single asset is my 401K as I have been with my current employer a long time. Even though he gets nothing (not in any immediate way) for it, he advises me on the 401K and has guided me through some shrewd moves over the years (changing the mix of foreign/domestic, small/medium/large cap, income/value, stocks/bonds/cash/REIT, etc). Is he a wunderkind genius? Nah, I know a few people who have done better. I also know some people who dabbled in it themselves and got crushed. He knows I am somewhat conservative and guides me differently than his aggressive clients. If I were to switch jobs, I would roll the 401K into IRAs he manages and will do that if I am still here when I am 59.5, so I know he helps with the 401K with an eye toward eventually managing the funds.
Anyway, what I am getting at is that I think a good FP is not just someone who sells you products and only looks at the accounts actively managed by him/her. A good FP advises you on how to achieve your goals in a way you are comfortable with and monitors progress in a way you can understand. If you would fire your FP for a bad year, then I think you should go ahead and fire him/her now because you don't have the right relationship. Just my opinion.
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