My Blog

Plan, Invest, Live…#6 Too much of one stock? A case study… A client recently came to me with their investments, and unfortunately too much of it was in one stock. Yikes! I asked and was granted permission to share the story so that others could learn from this. Obviously, I’ll leave out the names for privacy. There are two lessons we’ll get to from this situation. Here’s a quick definition that you should get to know. The phrase is “concentrated position”, and it has nothing to do with juice! When someone has a stock that dominates the portfolio risk and return, we call this a “concentrated position” in the financial planning industry. This means the portfolio is not much of a portfolio. The “portfolio” is really going to behave just like that one stock. If the price goes up, that’s great, you’ll likely benefit from that move in the stock…

A recent visit with a client revealed the deep regret they have because their college savings for their children had not grown very much, yet it has been invested for many years. They gave me permission to share the story so that others won’t make the same mistake, but I’ll keep their identities a secret as I promised. What happened? Seventeen years ago when their son was born they began to save for college. They were excited parents, and also very diligent parents and good savers. They want a brighter future for their kids and greater opportunity. The couple met with their advisor who set them up with a college savings account so that many years down the road, aiming for Spring 2018, the funds would be ready to be used to pay for college expenses. They invested faithfully over all those years, however, they neglected to meet regularly with…

Plan, Invest, Live…Invest like you are tending a garden. Investing takes patience. In this world of instant food, entertainment, success… instant everything. It is hard to be patient with the world screaming at us from all sides, “Now, now, now.” Patience is hard. We multi-task everything. I read…on the treadmill, two things at once. And when necessary discipline some children at the same time too. That’s three things at once. Which means I am probably doing none of those well. I usually have the timer set on my phone to move the sprinkler (that’s four) since the house we are in now does not have a sprinkler system yet, and I also usually have either the washer or dryer going…usually both. I guess this is one of the perks (distractions?) of working from home. Today, I worked from the doctor’s office. That was a first. I didn’t want to waste…