Financial Planning – Investments – Insurance & Risk Management
Portfolios are rebalanced all the time. Many firms even have the neat ability to automatically re-balance portfolios for you. Along with diversification, people preach automatic re-balancing as a way to protect yourself. I can tell you that it is 100% true. It can and will protect you from earning higher returns in the stock market. It sounds [...]
Diversify, diversify, diversify is what you will hear when creating portfolios. Never put all your eggs in one basket. When these eggs are your life savings, 2, 3, or even 4 baskets may not be enough. Is 10 enough? 50? 100? 1000? When it comes to investments, how many “baskets” is enough? There is a magic number for [...]
One conversation that comes up with clients who are near retirement age is Long Term Care (LTC). Most people always worry about saving enough for retirement but LTC is an important key aspect to ensure you do have enough for retirement. At younger ages, people are more worried about accidental deaths (aka term life insurance) [...]
What is the difference between a mutual fund and ETF. I use a chart with clients that I believe is faster and easier than typing it out. So one of the major difference is that with ETFs, you can trade them throughout the day. Mutual funds reprice at the close and trade at that price. [...]
Buying homes is always an important topic in financial planning. It is usually the biggest draw upon resournces that could be otherwise allocated to retirement. There are lots of rent vs buy calculators out there, but make sure you take them with a grain of salt. Here at Lodestone Capital Solutions, we also offer real [...]
There seems to be some misconceptions on how banks, brokerage houses, investment advisory services and clearing houses are related or in some cases the same. It is because many companies offer a combination of these services that people become confused as to what goes with which or what each one does. So hopefully we can [...]
Retirement is usually the one biggest issue everyone asks about when we do financial planning sessions. Everyone with a normal 9-5 has access to a 401k and an IRA. We can take a quick look at some key figures with the following assumptions. With that, we can assumption of: Maximum contributions into both retirement accounts [...]
I found an infographic on Warren Buffet. One of the greatest investors of all times and one we try to mimic here at Lodestone Capital Solutions. It shows a quick snapshot of his philosophy, hobbies and life achievements. For a larger version, please go here
Often when meeting with people who are interested in financial planning, I may ask the following questions. Are you comfortable with the amount of money you have? Is it enough? When you think about your finances, do you feel peaceful and at ease? Are you spending as much time with friends & family as you would [...]
Banks, banks and more banks. Wells Fargo (WFC), Citibank (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Bank of America (BAC). The 4 big banks in the United States after all the collapses and mergers. They account for 35-40% of the total market share. One bank we are interested in is Bank of America. A close second is [...]