Find Your Investing Soulmate on the Jersey Turnpike
As a followup to a previous column, "Irreconcilable Differences," I received an e-mail from a reader asking how she could ensure, ahead of time, investment compatibility with a future spouse.
Unfortunately, like most issues in life, the direct approach does not work. Asking him, "Sweetie, how will you invest our 401(k) funds?" will only result in getting the answer he thinks you want. "Honey, whatever you think is best," will be the answer you will hear. The thought that different investment strategies could result in irreconcilable harm to your future relationship seems remote to him. But we know better. He will say whatever you want in order to move the conversation to supposedly more important questions like, "How many kids do you want, five or six?" Or, "What religion should we raise the kids in?" We all know, however, as index investors, that our Investment Gestalt (IG) is the key predictor of future happiness. Fortunately, I have developed a test that will increase the probability of matching your IG with that of a prospective partner.
Before You Start Investing
There maybe several reasons why you to want to invest your money. You may want to retire early, want to build your own business in the future, or to pay for your kid’s education. Should everyone start investing outside their retirement accounts right away? The answer to this question is that it depends on your financial situation. First, you must have a basic understanding in financial management. What would happen if you lose your job, accumulate large medical expenses, or losing money on your investments? Do you still have money to pay your bills? Do you have to sell your investments that you have worked so hard for, with a loss? No one knows what the future will bring. Therefore, you must have a safety net to fall back on in an unexpected event. This article contains 5 concepts that you should follow before you start investing outside of your retirement accounts.
1. Increase your savings rate:
In a Time of Need
As I take my leisurely walk with my dog through the older section of the local cemetery, I pause to read the details on the barely legible, weathered headstones. I am fascinated with the dates, for I know each stone has a story to tell, a history of its own time and place, but only enough space for identity. Proceeding up the rolling asphalt pathway, I am led into the new section of the cemetery. It becomes crystal clear as I compare the cemetery’s old sections with the new, Americans are living longer.
The aging of people in the US over the next three decades will have a huge impact on the way financial planners conduct business. Most baby boomers will reach retirement age over the next 30 years, causing rapid growth of the population over age 65.
According to the 1999 National Vital Statistics Reports, a total of 2,391,399 deaths occurred in the United States in that year. The age-adjusted death rate, which eliminates the effects of the aging of the population, was 881.9 deaths per 100,000. In 2001, a total of 2,416,425 deaths occurred in the United States. The age-adjusted death rate was 854.5 deaths per 100,000 (U.S. Census Bureau 1999, 2001).
Four Key Components To Building A Trading System
Need some insight on what you should really be striving for when you’re building a mechanical trading system? When it comes down to it, there are really only a few criteria that are used in judging the merits of a trading system. The most obvious one is profitability - does the system work? But really, there’s more to it than just that. The number of wins versus the number of losses is important too, but there’s a lot of latitude there if the profitability is high. The size of the average win versus the size of the average loss tends to be held as important, and it is. However, that criteria is correlated to the number of wins and losses, so again, there’s a lot of leeway there. The one thing that is too often overlooked is the consistency of a system. The fancier term for this is ‘drawdown’, but it’s just a matter of consistency…..you’ll see why below. Each of these four components is examined below, and then some of the common mistakes made when folks start building trading systems are discussed.
Missleading Fund Names Wreak Havoc On Investor Returns!
Mutual fund managers use fake fund names to part you from your money such that you cannot judge what a fund does by its name. Many funds have names that are outright misleading or even deceptive. In the late 1990’s, for instance, during the technology stock bubble, some portfolio managers took advantage of public’s desire to chase the latest fad by slapping "internet" in front of their fund names.
The chances of that happening now are possibly lower. As of July 2002, the SEC requires funds to have at least 80% of their assets in securities that their fund name implies, up from 65% previously. This new rule is forcing funds that called themselves something like the America’s Government Fund to either dispose of East Asian government debt if it exceeded 20% of fund assets, or to change the fund’s name.
Likewise for funds that call themselves an equity income fund but have 25% of assets in stocks that paid no dividends. More than five hundred funds have had to change their names because they failed the 80% rule. Invesco’s Blue Chip Growth fund, for example, is now called just growth fund, since 60% of its holdings are in technology stocks, and many of those can hardly be called blue chips these days.
The Past Does Not Equal The Future: Mutual Fund Returns!
A way that investors get ripped off and in a sense rip themselves off is based on the culture of performance in the mutual fund industry. If you stop and think about it there is absolutely no reason that the past has to equal the future. If you have not been particularly successful as a stock investor in the past, for instance, there is no reason that you won’t be unsuccessful in the future. One reason I hope that you are reading this article is that you want to improve as an investor.
Let’s discuss how professional gamblers profit in Las Vegas. Card counters are a type of professional gambler that uses their memory of what card cards have been dealt out of a deck in a game of blackjack (also called 21). Since there are only a certain number of each type of card they can increase their bets when it is more likely that they will win then lose. This works because after the shuffle the deck starts with a certain composition and a number of games are played until the next shuffle. Toward the end of the deck you can know what may be coming out if you are paying attention because each hand in the deck is depends on what has been dealt before.
Mutual Fund Selection Made Simple By Indexing!
Non-indexed mutual funds try to keep it secret that actively managed mutual very funds rarely do better stock market indexes. The higher fees of the managed funds really make it hard for these funds to out compete indexed funds. Smart financial journalists occasionally rat out fund managers for not educating the public in this regard. When this happens the mutual fund managers make a feeble attempt at self defense by pointing to something called the 5% rule.
This rule says that for a fund to market itself as diversified it cannot have more than 5% of 75% of the funds total assets in a single stock. In other words, a fund can have 25% of its holdings in a single stock, but the remaining 75% must follow the 5% rule. The 5% rule was created by the Investment Company Act Requirement. Fund managers claim that this hampers their performance instead of admitting that they are in the business just to clip you for high fees while the mutual fund under-performs the general market.
A Safe Port For Mutual Funds But Not You!
Soft dollars, a form of legal kickback, is a sly way you can get ripped off by mutual fund managers. Full service brokers give these kickbacks to non-indexed mutual funds in the form of a "rebate" to purchase research, software, and even computer equipment.
You pay for these soft dollars! In recent years, the SEC estimated that soft-dollar deals exceeded $1 billion. Typically, $1 accrues for every $1.60 of brokerage commissions paid. Congress made these kickbacks legal in 1975 when it passed the "safe harbor" law. The legislation allows fund managers to pay more in commissions than is necessary, as long as the excess comes back in the form of services or research that benefits investors.
The problem is that this has created an opaque system that can be abused. In 1998, the SEC found that some money mangers were using soft dollars to pay for salaries, office rent, and even vacations! Think about this. You sweat every day at work to make a living. You buy a mutual fund to secure your retirement. Then the person who is supposedly protecting your retirement is sipping Margaritas in Cancun discussing with his or her buddies where to buy their next mansion with your retirement dollars!
Caveat Emptor: You May Owe Taxes Despite 401(K) Losses!
One among many ways you lose money in non-indexed mutual funds is the tax trap. You may have to pay taxes even when your mutual fund loses money! To many people this is painfully unexpected. Here is how this counter intuitive event occurs. By law, mutual funds do not pay taxes. Instead, they pass on those taxes to you, the shareholder in the mutual fund. If the fund manager sells a stock for more than it cost the fund a profit is generated. This profit is called a capital gain and it is taxable. Capital gains are taxed at your ordinary income tax rate which is between 28% and 38.6% for most investors if the fund held the stock for less than a year. If the stock was held for more than a year, in other words long term, the tax is 20%.
There are a couple of reasons why mutual funds pay taxes. If the fund does poorly investors will bail out. The mutual fund has to sell off stock to pay the investors who leave. Even if you are not one of the investors jumping ship you will still have to pay your portion of the capital gains tax.
Invisible Mutual Fund Fees Erode Your Returns!
Many investors think that investing in mutual funds is free. What nonsense! Funds collect more than $50 billion a year in fees from investors. That is truly a ton of money. The first way you get hosed in a mutual fund is due to high fees charged. These fees can dramatically reduce your returns over time!
The way that these fees are deducted automatically from a fund’s returns makes them invisible because you never see an invoice or have to write a check. If you invest $10,000.00 in a domestic stock mutual fund with an expense ratio of 2% and a sales load of 3%, and let’s imagine that you get annual returns of 7.5% for twenty years, your money would almost triple to $27,508.00.
The bad news is that you would have lost $14,970 in fees and foregone earnings over the twenty years. Yikes?that really hurts! Why not just bypass the system and buy your own stocks as I teach finance students and home study investors? These funds are also sold and managed on pure hype, short term trading, and with key information withheld from the public.
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