Asset allocation is a common strategy that you can use to construct an investment portfolio. Asset allocation isn’t about picking individual securities. Instead, you focus on broad categories of investments, mixing them together in the right proportion to match your… Read More
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Six Keys to More Successful Investing
A successful investor maximizes gain and minimizes loss. Though there can be no guarantee that any investment strategy will be successful and all investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal, here are six basic principles that may help… Read More
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Fundamental Concepts for New Investors
Investing involves setting goals for the future and weighing the risks and potential rewards associated with a wide variety of investment opportunities. If you are a new investor, this might seem like an overwhelming task. But take heart. Becoming familiar… Read More
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The Pros and Cons of Rebalancing Your Portfolio
BWFA provides fee-only fiduciary standard investment management that focuses on long term decision making. We avoid short term trading, market timing and emotional reactions to day-to-day volatility, to provide clients with investment results to meet their individual needs over their… Read More
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Rolling Stock Market Returns: The Antidote for the Daily Stock Market Watcher
Rolling returns are a great way to measure investment performance (in this example the S&P 500 index). These rolling returns don’t correspond to calendar periods. We begin to understand investing more clearly as we compare the rolling stock market return periods… Read More
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Volatility in the Markets
The military conflict in Ukraine over the past month is very disconcerting. The situation remains intense with no end in sight. We hope for a swift, peaceful, and just resolution of the war between Russia and Ukraine. At BWFA, we… Read More
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Are Bonds “Conservative Investments”? Maybe Not.
BWFA has been underweighting allocations to bonds and other interest-rate-sensitive investments, given that many of these choices pay very little, and there is a risk to principle eroding, if interest rates go up. Bonds may not be as glamorous as… Read More
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Understanding IRAs
An individual retirement arrangement (IRA) is a personal savings plan that offers specific tax benefits. IRAs are one of the most powerful retirement savings tools available to you. Even if you’re contributing to a 401(k) or other plan at work,… Read More
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Investing for the Next Decade (7 perspectives on what the world in 2030 will look like)
The 2030s may seem like the distant future and certainly not a focus for many of us looking to just make it through these challenging current times. However, we, at BWFA, spend much of our time considering what life will… Read More
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Do You Have Too Much Cash, Earning Too Little?
Determining the right amount of cash to hold is a much more complicated decision than most people think. You want to have enough cash on hand for monthly expenses, for unexpected large expenditures, and for an emergency fund in case… Read More
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Why is a Comprehensive Portfolio Assessment So Important? [23 Factors that Impact your Investment Portfolio]
BWFA evaluates 23 factors that impact your investment portfolio in our Comprehensive Financial Assessment conducted by a Certified Financial Planner and a Senior Portfolio Manager. How will your portfolio score? Sign up for this important webinar to learn how to… Read More
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What About 1968?
In the most recent June 2020 BWFA Advisor magazine, I wrote, “What a Difference 100 Years Makes…or Does It?”. In the article, I drew comparison to today’s pandemic with the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. What we saw is, despite… Read More
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Net Unrealized Appreciation: The Untold Story
If you participate in a 401(k), ESOP, or other qualified retirement plan that lets you invest in your employer’s stock, you need to know about net unrealized appreciation — a simple tax deferral opportunity with an unfortunately complicated name. When… Read More
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The Power of Perseverance
THE CASE FOR STAYING INVESTED Although short-term volatility swings can be difficult to stomach, it’s important for long-term investors to persevere. While it may be tempting to pull out of the stock market, investors may miss out on a potential… Read More
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What a Difference 100 Years Makes… Or Not?
What can the 1918 influenza pandemic, the so-called “Spanish Flu”, teach us about how the markets have responded to current health concerns—and also how to act accordingly? There has been a “protracted discounting” of the market and the underlying value… Read More
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Bonds, Interest Rates, and the Impact of Inflation
There are two fundamental ways that you can profit from owning bonds: from the interest that bonds pay, or from any increase in the bond’s price. Many people who invest in bonds because they want a steady stream of income… Read More
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Risk Management and Your Retirement Savings
By investing for retirement, you are helping to manage a critically important financial risk: the chance that you will outlive your money. But choosing to invest is just one step in your financial risk management strategy. You also need to… Read More
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What To Do In 2020?
In a phrase, keep investing in stocks. At the risk of appearing blindly bullish, this eternal optimist will attempt to provide some context for BWFA’s thinking going forward into 2020 and our overall approach to investing for our clients. As… Read More
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Converting Investment Assets to Retirement Income
During your working years, you’ve probably set aside funds in retirement accounts such as IRAs, 401(k)s, or other workplace savings plans, as well as in taxable accounts. Your challenge during retirement is to convert those savings into an ongoing income… Read More
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Growth vs. Value: What’s the Difference?
There are generally two schools of thought about how to choose stocks that may be worth investing in. Value investors generally buy stocks that appear to be bargains relative to the company’s intrinsic worth. Growth investors prefer companies that are… Read More
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Past Performance is Not an Indication of Future Results
“While results vary from asset class to asset class and from time period to time period, experience suggests that for predicting future values, historical data appear to be quite useful with respect to standard deviations (risk), reasonably useful for correlations,… Read More
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What To Do With Cash Reserves
In times of crisis, you don’t want to be shaking pennies out of a piggy bank. Having a financial safety net in place can ensure that you’re protected when a financial emergency arises. One way to accomplish this is by… Read More
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Balancing a Retirement Portfolio with Asset Allocation
The combination of investments you choose is as important as the individual investments themselves. In fact, many experts argue that it’s even more important, since the mix of various types of investments accounts for most of the ups and downs… Read More
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The Roth 401(k)
Some employers offer 401(k) plans that allow participants the opportunity to make Roth 401(k) contributions. If you’re lucky enough to work for an employer that offers this option, Roth contributions could play an important role in helping enhance your retirement… Read More
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Understanding Risk — Pick Your Poison!
Currently, the public is quite focused on volatility. This is otherwise known as Market Risk—referring to the possibility that an investment will lose value because of a general decline in financial markets, due to one or more economic, political or… Read More
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Lump Sum vs. Dollar Cost Averaging: Which is Better?
Some people go swimming by diving into the pool; others prefer to edge into the water gradually, especially if the water’s cold. A decision about putting money into an investment can be somewhat similar. Is it best to invest your… Read More
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When will the Bull Market End?… When Did it Actually Start?
• S&P 500 average length of a bull market is 97 months • S&P 500 average length of a bear market is 18 months Consider what are alleged to be the two longest running bull markets in modern financial history—one… Read More
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Concentrated Stock Positions: Considerations and Strategies
Whether you inherited a large holding, exercised options to buy your company’s stock, sold a private business, hold restricted stock, or have benefited from repeated stock splits over the years, having a large position in a single stock carries unique… Read More
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Asset Allocation in Retirement
Your asset allocation strategy in retirement will probably be different than the one you used when saving for retirement. During your accumulation years, your asset allocation decisions may have been focused primarily on long-term growth. But as you transition into… Read More
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Following the (News) Crowd… Is it Good for You?
There is no finer example of humans’ herd mentality than listening to, and acting upon, the tidbits of the financial news media. As was commented recently, what if you left the design of elevator buttons to these folks in the media? Instead of “UP and… Read More
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Dividends in a Portfolio
WHY CONSIDER DIVIDENDS? Dividend income has represented roughly one-third of the total return on the Standard and Poor’s 500 since 1926. According to S&P, the portion of total return attributable to dividends has ranged from a high of 53% during… Read More
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Interest Rates Rising… What About the Stock Market?
• What is the relationship between interest rates and the stock market? • Can stocks rise in a rising interest rate environment? • Do interest rates impact all stocks the same? Logic, and recent stock market volatility, would seem to… Read More
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Inflation Doesn’t Retire When You Do
The need to outpace inflation doesn’t end at retirement; in fact, it becomes even more important. If you’re living on a fixed income, you need to make sure your investing strategy takes inflation into account. Otherwise, you may have less… Read More
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Holding Equities for the Long Term: Time vs. Timing
Legendary investor Warren Buffett is famous for his long-term perspective. He has said that he likes to make investments he would be comfortable holding even if the market shut down for 10 years. Investing with an eye to the long… Read More
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What Rising Rates Could Mean for Your Money
After years of keeping the benchmark federal funds rate at historic lows, the Federal Reserve has been raising it gradually. Near-zero rates were an emergency measure, and gradual increases reflect greater confidence in the U.S. economy. However, rising rates can… Read More
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Are Your Cash Investments Fully Insured?
As many of you know, a person’s bank accounts are only covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation up to $250,000 per person. Many people may be unaware that any cash held in a savings, money market and checking accounts… Read More
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Pay Down Debt or Save for Retirement?
You can use a variety of strategies to pay off debt, many of which can cut not only the amount of time it will take to pay off the debt but also the total interest paid. However, like many people,… Read More
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Monte Carlo Analysis
When you sit down with a BWFA financial professional to update your retirement plan, you may encounter a Monte Carlo simulation, a financial forecasting method that has become more prevalent in the last few years. Monte Carlo financial simulations project… Read More
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Time in the Stock Market + Market’s Resiliency = Potential for Long Term Financial Success
In the last quarterly newsletter, I wrote about the benefits of time in the market and, conversely, the perils of missing the most successful, unpredictably timed, individual positive days in the market. Simply stated it is “time in the market” that trumps “timing… Read More