Blog Posts

By Michael J. Searcy

When it comes to an advisor managing the money you are saving and investing for retirement, the management and recommendations should be transparent and made with your best interest in mind.

The Department of Labor believed this strongly enough to spend years working on a rule that was finally issued on April 6, 2016. The rule states that any advisor managing a retirement plan or its participants is a fiduciary, legally bound to make decisions in the best interest of their clients. This rule also applies to advisors who recommend consumers move their investments from a retirement plan to an Individual Retirement Account (IRA).

By Marc C. Shaffer

Have you recently found yourself with a large amount of cash and need to decide how to manage the funds? If you receive annual bonuses or are a 1099 employee, this may be a decision you face regularly. Or, you may be facing this decision for the first time if you have received an inheritance, a large tax refund, or have liquidated stock options. How do you know which strategy for managing your money is best?

If you’ve been watching market headlines, you probably heard that markets tumbled in the first days of 2016, raising the specter of corrections and bear markets. When markets swing, it’s natural to worry about your investments and question your commitment to your strategy. We have outlined 4 strategies to keep in mind when markets swing:

After a turbulent 2015, stocks tumbled in the first few weeks of 2016, causing concerns that the bull market we’ve enjoyed since 2009 may be over. We’d like to take the opportunity to help you put market corrections in perspective.

Projecting the Investment Horizon: Don’t Let Emotion Get the Best of You

By Michael J. Searcy

If you’re like the majority of the investing public, you may think this diagram depicting the emotional rollercoaster of investing is a great representation of how you feel these days. The diagram takes us through a simplified market cycle starting with a period leading toward strong performance (a bull market) and then falling into a period of weak performance (a bear market), then back to an upturn, thus showing the cycle is never ending. Fluctuation through these cycles can leave investors with feelings of euphoria when things seem to be going great, despair when they’re going bad, and optimism when it seems like poor performance is on its way back up again.