Category Archives: Investing

Excessive Trading Leads To Death

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Actually, the headlines on Friday, November 29th, 1940 read, “Livermore, Wall St. Wonder, Dead.”[i]  I was recently re-acquainted with Jesse Livermore’s story—that of a self-made trading savant whose early-life exploits were regaled in a series of articles turned classic work of historical fiction, Reminiscences of a Stock Operator, by Edwin Lefevre[ii]. The volume is still handed out as a guide book to new traders every year, an ironic tradition considering the book was written as a cautionary tale.

It was first published in 1923, after Livermore had won and lost a couple fortunes already, but prior to his biggest take when he shorted the market in the Great Depression, increasing his net worth to a stunning $100 million.  Livermore subsequently went bankrupt—not for the first time—and was suspended as a member of the Chicago Board of Trade in 1934.  So why do we continue to romanticize the story of an investor who lost as much money as he ever made?  Why do we glorify the existence of a man who, thrice married, deemed his life’s work an abject failure?

The story’s remarkable appeal should not surprise us—regardless of the futility of sustainable success in the business of gambling, the allure of the quick or easy fortune seems a siren’s song that will forever be sung, heard and followed.  Maybe the appeal of Livermore’s sad story is that he did not follow his own rules, by his own admission, and that if we can manage to do so, we might be able to make the equivalent fortune without losing it.

Don’t bet on it.  When attending to the business of fooling the market, we almost invariably end up fooling ourselves.  And while one of the first stages of grief for the newly penniless may be blaming our failure on the market, like many others, Livermore eventually placed the blame where it rightly lay—on himself—and sadly took his own life at the age of 63.

Unfortunately, it’s not a stretch to suggest that dedicating ourselves wholly to the pursuit of money and riches often leads to death—literally for some but figuratively for many, many more.  Relinquish the claim to overnight riches in favor of lifetime investing.  You have a favorable probability of generating comfortable wealth through a lifetime of dedicated investing, but even the most disciplined gamblers eventually learn this sad truth—the house always wins.

[i] “The Daily News Record,” Harrisonburg, Virginia, November 29th, 1940

[ii] I highly recommend the edition published by John Wiley & Sons in 2010, newly and informatively annotated by Jon D. Markman.

Annuity Audit App

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This is the 10th exercise in a series designed to walk you through an entire financial plan.  The exercise is embedded in an Excel spreadsheet you can download and save for personal use.  You can read the backdrop for the exercise HERE, or just jump right in with the instructions given below:

It is my hope that this is an extremely brief exercise for you, but many people who have long-term relationships with folks in the insurance, brokerage, or banking industries have a lifetime of annuities built up.  If that is your scenario, it is very important that you do this exercise to get a handle on where your money is and what it is doing (or not doing).

When you did your Personal Balance Sheet or Mutual Fund Audit App, you probably pulled together the statements for any annuities you own.  These statements often lack the information you’ll need for this exercise, so I also want you to pull together each of the contracts you received at the inception of your annuity policies as well.  Then, using the App (link below), fill in the information cataloging the following: owner[i], annuitant[ii], beneficiary[iii], contract value, surrender value, cost basis (the sum of your contributions), and the surrender schedule.  Some of this will be on your statement, but the remainder will be in your policy contract. You may have to do some digging.

Once you’ve collected the information, the analysis should start with a diagnosis of the investment value.  If it is a fixed annuity, you’ll know very quickly if the rate is competitive with today’s rates.  If it is a variable annuity, examine how it has performed versus the various benchmark indices.  If it is an equity indexed annuity, the chances are very good that it is not a phenomenal investment, but it also probably has a very long and steep surrender charge which may make it prohibitive to move at this time.

If you determine you’d prefer to be out of an annuity contract, here are the questions to ask:

  • What, if any, surrender charge exists?
  • Is the surrender charge cost prohibitive?
  • How much longer will the surrender charge last?
  • How much have you contributed (what is your cost basis)?
  • How substantial would the tax impact be (would you have to pay a lot in taxes)?
  • Is there a gain on which you would have to pay a penalty if you are under age 59½?

Again, remember to make these decisions slowly because there are many moving pieces with annuities.  It is best to speak with a fee-only Certified Financial Planner™ practitioner AND a Certified Public Accountant prior to making any final decisions.

Click HERE to access the Annuity Audit app!

[i] The person who made the investment in the annuity

[ii] The person upon whose life the actuarial calculations in the annuity policy were based (this is often the same person as the owner)

[iii] The person or people to whom any annuity proceeds will be directed upon the death of the annuitant

Mutual Fund Audit App

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This is the ninth exercise in a series designed to walk you through an entire financial plan.  The exercise is embedded in an Excel spreadsheet you can download and save for personal use.  You can read the backdrop for the exercise HERE, or just jump right in with the instructions given below:

Most of the information you’ll need to complete this exercise should already be together from the Personal Balance Sheet exercise earlier in this series, but if not, pull together the most recent holdings information that you have for your various investment accounts.  If you have online access to these accounts, it will be as easy as printing out the page with your current holdings.  If not, pull together each of the most recent statements for all of your investment accounts.

Aggregate your holdings using the form we’ve made available for this exercise online.  Segregate them between investments that are inside of retirement accounts (like your 401ks, 403bs, IRAs, etc.) and nonretirement accounts (there is a tab for each on the spreadsheet).  For any mutual funds, you’ll want to have the name of the fund and the five-letter symbol.

Now, navigate your web browser to www.morningstar.com.  With the tools here, you’ll be able to use that final column of your Investment Audit to fill in the Manager Category column.  (You can examine your mutual fund managers with the tools on Morningstar using the basic service at no cost.  Another good, free resource for the analysis of stocks and mutual funds is Yahoo’s Finance web site http://finance.yahoo.com/.)

Plug the symbol of each of your mutual funds into the “Quotes” field on Morningstar.  The main page for each fund will show you a 10-year chart with a graphical depiction of your fund’s performance alongside its benchmark.  Just below the chart, you’ll see a tool that will allow you to click and drag the timeline backwards to see a longer fund history if it’s
available.  You can also hit the “Performance” tab and select the “Expanded View” to see even more detail about the fund’s numerical performance.

Using the tips in this post, you should now be able to classify each of your funds.  In the Action column on the right hand side of the worksheet, check any of the Return Chasers and Index Huggers for additional review.  Again, Return Chasers should be well understood, carefully monitored, and dumped if misunderstood.  Index Huggers should be replaced.

Click HERE to access the Mutual Fund Audit app!

The Three Guarantees In Financial Planning

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Not much in the realm of financial planning can be guaranteed.  Even the best projections and technical analyses are filled with disclaimers noting, among other things, that “Past performance is no indicator of future results.”  You can lose money.  The company you’re counting on could go out of business.  But of this you can be sure:  Three sure-fire guarantees in financial planning are SURPRISES, CHANGE and FAILURE.

Reassured?  I was afraid not.

But fear not, these three guarantees do come with counter-agents that we can systematize in our financial planning to minimize any negative impact:

Surprises require MARGIN.  Change requires FLEXIBILITY.  And failure requires GRACE.

Margin is a lost art and missing in nearly all phases of life in our all-too-hurried, uber-productive, stressed-out lives.  We don’t leave enough empty space on our calendars, so if we get stuck in traffic or stop to help a stranded motorist, we’re likely to be late for something else.  We can’t do anything spontaneous because every minute is already filled.  And because all of our time is spoken for, we also don’t have much in the way of blank canvas in our, and all too often our hearts.  And this is especially true of our finances—because every dollar is already spent or pledged, often even small emergencies or organic opportunities can’t be absorbed or funded.  There’s no margin for error.

Our lack of margin feeds our inflexibility.  We often don’t even consider the possibility of change because we don’t have the time.  Change, therefore, is inevitably also a surprise, compounding the discomfort.  But we often struggle to accommodate even predictable change.   Can your finances adapt to another child—even if the pregnancy was planned—or the reduction of income in an industry-wide change that was anticipated?  That which doesn’t bend, breaks.

For most of us, so much of our life is spent protecting ourselves from failure that it can be devastating when it arrives.  And it will.  Failure is simply a natural byproduct of our human imperfection.  And if you’re unable to view it as the most successful people often do—as an opportunity for invaluable education and personal growth—please consider diminishing failure’s grip, if only for pragmatic purposes.  Remember the major-leaguer who qualifies for the all-star team when he only succeeds a third of the time (a .333 average in Major League Baseball isn’t bad).  That’s where grace comes in.  Grace isn’t for the guiltless; that’s called vindication or acquittal.  Grace is being forgiven—or forgiving ourselves—when we’ve screwed up, slouched, squandered or slandered.  You don’t have to deserve it to receive it.

So what on Earth could this possibly have to do with Roth IRAs?

I love the tax-free growth and retirement distributions available with Roth IRAs.  I love that you’re not forced to take Required Minimum Distributions after age 70 ½, and I think there’s no better gift you could give your heirs than a Roth.  But my very favorite element of the Roth IRA is its LIQUIDITY, and liquidity is the key to navigating the three guarantees of financial planning.

In case you’re not following me, Roth IRAs are unlike any other retirement investment bucket, for lack of a better term, as you’re allowed to back money out of the account for any reason at any time at any age and without any tax consequences or penalties.  There’s only one caveat: you can only take back your principal—what you contributed to the account—unconditionally.  Your growth is subject to all those typical conditions (taxes and penalties) you’re accustomed to in the realm of retirement accounts.  But if you put $10,000 into a Roth and it grows to $12,000, you can take back your $10,000 whenever you please and for whatever reason.

I’m not encouraging you to take the money out, forfeiting a lifetime (and maybe multiple lifetimes if you pass it to heirs) of tax-free growth and distributions.  But hey, “stuff” happens.  LIFE HAPPENS.

So allow a Roth IRA to become part of your strategy.  Use it as an extension (not the primary source) of your MARGIN, the foundation of which should be pure cash reserves in a bank savings account.  Allow it to facilitate your FLEXIBILITY to change, if and when it’s necessary.  And if you have to dip into it, give yourself GRACE.  Learn from the experience so that you’re better prepared for the next surprise and the inevitable change to come.

Too Complex For Their Own Good?

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This week on my Forbes post, “Don’t Outsmart Yourself Financially,” I took issue with an article written by Nobel-winning economist, Paul Krugman, for his rationalizing of the enormous debt load of our country.  But while economists have and will wax eloquent on the past, present and future utilizing brilliant theories well beyond the bounds of common sense (and often practical application), we have no such allowance in the realm of personal finance.  Indeed, YOU SHOULD NEVER PURSUE A STRATEGY YOU CAN’T UNDERSTAND.

Here are a collection of financial strategies that sound impressive but may be too complex for their own good:

  • Equity Indexed Annuities—EIAs are actually fixed annuities, but if you ask one of their passionate purveyors[i] how they manage to offer market upside with none of the downside, I hope you’ve set aside some time because you’re in for a very long conversation…if the agent even knows enough about their inner workings to  educate you.  In short, insurance companies buy bonds with your investment and use the interest payments to purchase stock options to materialize the upside of the stock market.  They hedge their bets—I mean, positions—by handcuffing you with some of the biggest (7%, 9%, even 12% and higher) and longest (10, 15 or even 20 years) surrender charges in the business.  Like too many financial products, these instruments are sold, not bought, and I don’t recommend tying up your money in one of these financial experiments.
  • Life Insurance As Primary Retirement Vehicle—There’s a wow-inducing sales system (called the LEAP system) that was built for life insurance agents seeking to increase their sales in one of the best-paying commission products on the market, permanent life insurance (whole life, variable life and universal life).   After an hour of mind-numbing chart-flipping, you’ll be ready to divert your 401k savings into a brand new life insurance policy![ii]  But unless you make over $250,000 per year or have millions in net worth, you simply don’t need to worry yourself with the variables in permanent life insurance.
  • “Option Arm” Mortgages—The landscape of mortgage products has dwindled significantly from the pre-crash days when you could literally pick the payment on your mortgage in the now infamous option arm mortgages.  A mortgage broker in Pennsylvania at one point pitched me on a joint collaboration in which I would lend financial credence to his recommendations for clients to take on these crazy mortgages and they would, in turn, invest all the extra money they didn’t have to pay towards their mortgage in accounts I would manage.  I laughed at first, thinking he was kidding.  Then I realized he wasn’t.  Especially with rates as low as they are today, there are very few reasons to take on any mortgage other than a fixed mortgage, but there is NEVER a reason to take on a mortgage that increases your debt instead of paying it off.
  • Exchange Traded Funds—This one may surprise you, and I should be quick to point out that ETFs can be very wisely and properly utilized in a diversified investment strategy.  But you’d better fully understand what you’re buying.  Much like a mutual fund, an exchange traded fund is a single investment representing a basket of securities.  For example, you can purchase an ETF that will track the S&P 500 index or commodities like gold or oil.  But the question remains, what exactly is inside of the ETF?  Sometimes it is actual investments, (like stocks in gold mining companies, for instance) but often the underlying properties in an ETF are derivatives—options or futures—and subject to market forces beyond the commodity or index itself.  If you don’t understand how the investment is built, you may be in for a surprise when you see how it actually reacts to market stimuli.

There are many other examples out there, and I’d love to hear what you’ve run into in your financial journey.  Please share your good or bad experience, or ask any questions, in the comments section!

[i] Why so passionate, you ask?  These products have some of the biggest commissions in the business.  Up to and over 12%!

[ii] I worked with one agent in a prior professional life who regularly pitched a “Roth Look-A-Like,” an alternate retirement savings vehicle designed to give you all the tax advantage of a Roth IRA, and more…except that it was nothing more than a whole life insurance policy.  I saw one unfortunate 20-something guy who wasn’t even married and had no dependents buy a look-a-like when his money would’ve been better served in a true Roth.

The Economic Bias of Financial Advisors

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After a great September of guest posts from internationally recognized bloggers and authors[i], I’m going to spend the month of October turning a constructively critical eye toward the very business of which I’m a part—the realm of financial planners and advisors.

I’ll be tackling this territory in 90 Second style, beginning with an examination of the three primary compensation models into which nearly every financial advisor fits.  And in keeping with my 2011 resolution, I can pledge that each of these video snippets DOES fall within my prescribed 90 second timeframe!

_____________________________________

[i] If you missed any of the guest posts, check them out: musical philanthropist/author,Derek Sivers; travel-hacker/life blogger, Chris Guillebeau; personal finance blogging pioneer, J.D. Roth; and financial artist/industry agitator, Carl Richards.

What the #@$% is going on?

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Unless you live under a rock (check out this Geico commercial referencing under-rock living if you haven’t seen it), you have picked up the message that volatile markets and bumbling economies have again captured the global consciousness.  If you looked at the headlines any of the last several days, you may very well have concluded that the sky is falling and the financial crisis of 2008 is returning.  A great article in the Wall Street Journal explained “Why This Crisis Differs From the 2008 Version,” but that still leaves us with the nagging question, “What the #@$% IS going on?”  (I’m not promoting profanity, only acknowledging that times like these have a tendency to inspire it.)

Strangely, the majority of the talking heads on television render their contrary opinions on what’s going to happen in the future—tomorrow, next week or next month—spending very little time educating us on what the underlying reasons are for our current crisis.  In the spirit of the Freakonomics team, who, in a recent podcast demonstrated “Why we are so bad at predicting the future,” I’ll avoid attempts at prognostication and seek instead to explain what IS and what ISN’T going on in the global economy at present, followed by a couple suggested action steps:

Debt ceiling?  S&P downgrade?

The big news of the last few weeks has been debate over the debt ceiling and the seemingly corresponding S&P downgrade of the United States government.  The market has been expecting this downgrade, regardless of what happened with the debt ceiling, for quite some time now—it wasn’t a surprise.  Besides, S&P’s ineptitude regarding the accuracy of their ratings, most notably demonstrated by their maintenance of top ratings on the junk that helped cause our financial collapse in 2008, has justifiably rendered their guidance nearly impotent.  It was suggested that if the debt ceiling was not raised, the U.S. would not be able to pay its bills for the first time in history and that could lead to a financial collapse.  Well, the debt ceiling WAS lifted, but the market responded by crashing.  How do we explain that?  The problem we’re experiencing now has little to do with the debt ceiling, but a lot to do with debt, in general.

So what is happening?

The U.S. certainly has its own debt problems to contend with, but while the U.S. media got narcissistically wrapped up in our own debt ceiling and S&P downgrade, it obscured the more imminent problem—major European countries threatening default.  We’ve all heard about the financial troubles of Greece, Ireland and Iceland—each of which required financial assistance to stay afloat—but following those three countries are Italy and Spain.  They’re much bigger economies, and their failure may not be sustained by the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  And just within the last couple days, one of the stronger European countries’ banks, France, is sending warning signs pointing to another potential crisis there.

Deja vu?  (Not really)

In the Great Depression, we basically allowed the natural free-market system to run its course.  That resulted in the pain of 25% unemployment and a stock market decline of over 90%. The silver lining, however, was that after the economy recovered from its sickness, we got back on the path towards financial health and prosperity.  This time around, the government took unprecedented action to keep us from experiencing Depression-like immediate pain, but many suggest they just deferred the problem and that we’ll be dealing with it for many years into the future.

So the United States and other countries around the world started “printing money” to create growth in their economies, in the hope that increased money supply would pull us out of a recession headed towards depression.  But while it can’t (yet) be said that the U.S. is again dipping back into a recession (the dreaded “double dip”), some major European countries are headed quickly in that direction, and that contagion could spread around the world.  Again.  Governments have already started responded with measures similar to those utilized in the 2008/2009 financial crisis; doing whatever they can to create monetary liquidity they hope will spur growth.  This could result in a boost for economies and markets in the coming weeks and months, but it’s certainly no guarantee.

So, what can you do?

You shouldn’t make wholesale buying or selling decisions in your investments based on what a market does in a day or a week, but this current calamity should prompt you to return to your portfolio and take a long, hard look at what you own and why.  Whether you are a strict buy-and-hold asset allocator or an active investor, your strategy must recognize and contend with the possibility of times like these.  You—and your financial advisor—must be accountable to articulate why you own what you own and how you intend to react depending on further developments in this scary story.  I’m not recommending you buy, sell or “stay the course;” I’m recommending you educate yourself and then act accordingly, not out of impulse.  There is no bliss in ignorance.

*This post will also be featured on TheStreet.com.

Bad Advice for Younger Generations

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Young couple I read a Wall Street Journal article recently written by a reporter for whom I have a great deal of respect, but who acted as a conduit for a fundamentally flawed (supposed) majority opinion on the part of some financial advisors—that risk taking in investing and financial planning naturally leads to reward.  The article is entitled, “Take some chances, Gen X,” and chides 30-somethings for making capital preservation an investment priority, warehousing cash in defense of a job loss and eyeing debt elimination as a goal.

Hmmm.

I’m not denying the relationship between risk and return.  But while it is true that higher returns are accompanied by a greater degree of risk, the inverse is not promised.  It’s a classic investing blunder to presume taking higher risks will naturally result in a higher rate of return.

Is it possible that while the boomer advisors were pining over outdated investment “science” and Monte Carlo retirement simulations, they missed the simple math their younger clients discovered—that it’s easier to lose money in the market than it is to make it?  If you’ve lost 10% in your portfolio, it will take 11% to get back to where you started.  If you’ve lost 20%, you’ll need to make a 25% rate of return.  If you, however, get slammed by a 50% loss, you need to make a 100% rate of return to recover your losses.  Is it possible that youth and a stomach for losses isn’t actually the optimal investing posture?

The article wisely captures the reasoning behind the financial common sense of younger generations—“Many Generation X and Y investors have watched plunging financial markets destroy their parents’ retirement plans.”  That sounds eerily similar to words spoken by Gen X’s grandparents, the Depression Babies.  While it certainly is true that the intense, deep pain of the Great Depression may have created a syndrome in which some were too conservative, the Greatest Generation’s aversion to debt, skepticism of equity-heavy investing and penchant for emergency cash reserves may be exactly the foundation young investors need for a fruitful future.

The apparent concern of the "advisors"?  (And I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that they can’t charge fees and commissions on cash stored for emergency reserves or used to pay down debt…) They’re “…concerned that the low risk tolerance of some of these investors may ruin their retirements too, by leaving them short of funds when they get there.”  Again, the advisors miss the mark.  The point of financial planning and investing is not to retire, but to live a better life now and in the future.  Gen Xers, realizing they may be working indefinitely, thanks to companies and a federal government that raided their retirement promises (pensions and Social Security), are choosing jobs they love over those that pay the very most and seeking the nuanced balance between saving for the future and the present and everything in between.

Maybe the article should have been headlined, “Generation X shows more financial wisdom than financial advisors.”

Tim Maurer, CFP®

Financial Planner and Gen Xer

90 Second Finance…Don’t Panic!

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In 2010, I released a series of videos with the help of my friend and audio/visual enthusiast, Ben Lewis, entitled Finance in 90 Seconds or Less.  The attempt was to force me to encapsulate meaningful and substantive lessons in personal finance with the aid of a whiteboard in 90 seconds or less.  I FAILED!  We released 14 of these 90 Second Finance videos and I think no more than two of them fell under the 90 second allotment.  Educational they may have been, but I called myself on false advertising.

So I’ve made a resolution in 2011 to continue the series, BUT to only release those videos that are, indeed, 90 seconds or less.  (We’ll continue to produce some longer “feature” videos, like Making Financial Music, but the 90 Second series will carry this mandate.)  So far, so good.  We’ve recorded three videos and I’m batting a thousand!  Here’s the first with three actions you can take to avoid panicking, even when market or economic news seems to call for it.

Defense Wins Championships

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The fall is, without a doubt, my favorite time of year. And a not-so-insignificant element of that is the joy that fills my heart when huddled around my parents’ television on a Sunday afternoon with my family, a belly full of “linner” (a lunch big enough to be dinner) and the smell of apple pie wafting over a group of adults and children yelling in unison at the images of modern day gladiators chasing around an odd-shaped leather ball.  Football is philosophy… and some of that philosophy translates especially well in our personal finances.