Plan Realistically for Retirement

Retirement Dreams of the Future Are Made from Today’s Plans

When time is on your side, some say you should be more aggressive in your investment style. But what if you’re risk tolerance doesn’t match up to the long-term approach of aggressive stocks, mutual funds and ETFs? Should you disregard your own psychological profile for the axiom “that time heals all wounds” or in this case “all losses”? Investors and savers seem to be caught in the middle between their advisors’ recommendations of “pedal to the metal” and their own psychonomics, “to thine own self be true.”

Diversification of investments is also a trusted money mantra. But is the overall market interconnected anyway? Are investment products ultimately correlated somehow to each other that when the market tanks they all tank? Watch this segment investing more efficiently, part four of five from Lessons Not Learned about Money with syndicated financial columnist, award-winning investor educator and co-author of “How Mutual Funds Work” and “Building our Mutual Fund Portfolio,” Russ Wiles. http://rightonthemoneyshow.com/plan-realistically-for-retirement-russ-wiles/

No one can predict the future. And if the performance of the past is no indication of the future, why do investment products sell their historical returns? Isn’t that how stocks, bonds, mutual funds and ETFs are sold? Most investors and savers are looking for the lowest cost, the lowest beta risk and the highest returns from their investments. And as best as any money manager can do, they try to diversify their portfolio without marketing correlation, which many or may not be possible. 

The two philosophical methodologies between modern portfolio and tactical investing theorists are at odds against each other. There’s little common ground and therefore little to gain from each other. It’s very much like the two present day political parties, philosophies diametrically opposed to each other. Who to believe? So what’s the consumer to do? You do your homework as best as you can. You educate yourself as time permits. And you stay true to yourself, because it’s your money.