The Financial Shift

Preliminary 2013 Financial Data & Fiscal Cliff Scorecard &

 

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The fiscal cliff won't go away if you stop reading the newspapers | Heidi Moore

Why Wall Street Hates Our ValueAligned Portfolios Strategy

"America's investors have been ripped off as massively as a bank being held up by a guy with a gun and a mask," former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt warned in an article in Fortune magazine a decade ago. That same year in his classic "Take On The Street," Levitt lambasted the fund industry as "a culture that thrives on hype ... withholds important information," a "cutthroat business" that "misleads investors." Today, it's worse.

via www.smartmoney.com

Berk: ValueAligned Investing was born as the best defense against the war by the Wall Street machine ripping off Main Street investors - our friends and neighbors.

Our ValueAligned Portoflios give investors a superior alternative than gambling retirement funds in Wall Street's casino - where the bank and broker are the Casino and we are the losers.

Professional money management in your own account invested directly in stocks of great companies with no commissions no multi-layered, hidden fees.

Would you rather clean a bathroom than plan for your financial future?

We all need to engage in some financial planning, but few of us are eager to do so. According to a study from the ING Retirement Research Institute, almost a third of us would rather clean a bathroom than plan for our financial future. Fortunately, there are many resources available to help us, though they're not all equally helpful.

via www.fool.com

BERK: Some of us go to school to be doctors, engineers or accountants.  Some of us learn a trade or start a business.  Some pursue careers in teaching or the arts.  And some of us learn finance. That's me.  Why do so many fear talking about money?  My guess is that you think that you are supposed to know all about it through osmosis I guess...but your not.  Get help.  I beg you my friends to get help.  If it fits I would love it to be me - I know I can help most of you.  But get help - even if you are in the business - you probably are not in the business of actually "investing".

This is the worst period in our lifetimes to be squeamish about getting financial advice.  The worst mistake is avoiding the stock market.  Stocks of Great Companies will be the center of successful retirements for our  generation.  Take one day out from cleaning bathrooms and talk to someone you trust about retirement investments and savings.....

Our homes will no longer be the retirement vehicles we had hoped.  That's gone - now is the time to learn and reorder our savings and investment portfolios.

732-800-2375 (BERK),  if you want to talk.  You don't have to be super rich to deserve great financial and stock market advice.

U.S. Treasuries: The Safest Place to Lose Money

Is the risk/reward for U.S. Treasuries attractive right now? Why?
We currently view Treasury bonds as a high-risk sector.  In the words of a colleague, it may be the safest place to lose money. (emphasis added)

This view might fly in the face of those who deem them to be the best shelter against market turbulence. Valuations at 100 times earnings was the tipping point for the tech market a decade ago. We believe a parallel may be drawn for U.S. government bonds. Interest rates on U.S. Treasuries are at multigenerational lows. The yield on the 10-year bond hit the lowest level recorded since 1953 in the third quarter and is about 2.0% currently. Even though interest rates could still go lower from current levels, we believe the upside potential for Treasury bonds is quite limited while the downside risk could be substantial if the economy finds its footing or if inflation becomes a concern again in the near future. We tend to invest over a cycle and try to avoid short-term trades.

via news.morningstar.com

Berk: Cash is trash. Invest that cash in the stocks of Great Companies

Retirement Fears Jump The Wealth Gap To Strike Many Affluent Americans, Wells Fargo Retirement Study Finds

The Retirement Income Crisis

Take action now! Call me.  Let's talk.  You are not alone. You need to figure out what the "end" looks like.  

As you sit here today, looking out at the balance of your life—are you highly confident that your income will always be enough to sustain your lifestyle? Are you at all concerned that at some point in the future, during the next phase of your life you might actually start to run out of money?

“We find the rich versus poor narrative in the U.S. is more complex than we might expect, with fears and concerns about retirement felt along the income spectrum,” said Karen Wimbish, director of Retail Retirement at Wells Fargo. “Even among those considered ‘well off’, many seem to fear a sharp drop in their post-retirement standard of living due to insufficient retirement savings.”

• More than one third (37%) say they need to significantly cut back their spending to save for retirement, including nearly half (48%) of those with $100,000 to $250,000 in investable assets.

• Four in ten affluent Americans (40%) say their biggest fear about retirement is they “will do all the right things today and it still won't be enough for tomorrow” and 9% fear they “will have under saved and won’t recover.”

• About a quarter of affluent Americans (23%) say they are not confident they will have saved enough for retirement, and this is especially true for Americans with assets between $100,000 and $250,000 (33%), people without a written retirement plan (32%) and women (31%).

• More than one in five (21%) between the ages of 60 and 75 say they don’t know when they will be able to retire.

• Nearly one in five (19%) with assets of between $100,000 and $250,000 feel they will need to work until “at least age 80,” a sentiment reported by 25% of middle-class Americans surveyed at the same time. Among all the affluent surveyed, 12% say they will work until 80.

Previous studies have shown that while Americans in their 50s or younger are worried about their ability to retire in comfort, those in their 60s or older feel more secure. A much higher percentage of people above 60 have pensions, and proposals floated in Washington to cut future Social Security or Medicare benefits have avoided changes for those already retired or close to retirement age.

via www.thestreet.com

Fee-Only Financial Advisor - "I sell me"

Use stocks to prevent outliving your retirement income

When I render advice to my clients concerning how much money they ought to have in stocks, I always remember something that Ken Fisher wrote in his book The Only Three Questions That Count: Investing by Knowing What Others Don't .  The questionnaires and the "investor-types" and the colored charts in your customized plan aren't for you. They're for the salesperson and the brokerage firm. The elaborate plan that tells you how unique you are and how much of your savings should be in stocks translates into: What will cover my ass when you try to sue me later? 

The result: almost everyone near or at retirement do not have enough invested in stocks when valuations are low or reasonable - which causes them to miss the extra expected returns that stocks will offer to bolster retirement income.

The Retirement Income Crisis

What is The Financial Shift? It’s the the most important moment of your financial life—when you honestly answer the question:

As you sit here today, looking out at the balance of your life—are you highly confident that your income will always be enough to sustain your lifestyle? Are you at all concerned that at some point in the future, during the next phase of your life, after the shift, you might actually start to run out of money?

Many of us are at a point in our lives where we shift from striving to arriving.  It’s the choice we make to move toward a life that gathers up the pieces of our best, most fulfilled self. It’s the time when we start living a life rich with meaning and seriously look towards retirement, doing something meaningful and leaving a legacy.

And then the stock market crashes; the values of our homes go down and stay there; our jobs are much less secure; and the values of our 401(k)s, IRAs and other savings accounts are far below their highs of just a few years ago!  And worst of all - interest rates for safe bank deposits, money market funds and treasury bills are 1% or less! 

Most of us are just not sure anymore whether our retirement income will be enough so we can live in dignity and peace as we shift to the next phase of our lives.

Are you ready to make the financial shift that changes everything?

BERK

Will I run out of money?

At Berk Advisory we have seen first hand in our practice and in our community the destruction that this financial meltdown and subsequent recession have wrought.  Families with high, low and medium incomes do not know whether they will have enough income in their retirement years to live with dignity and independence.  The uncertainty over the near and far future is as high as any other period in our lifetimes.  Tax rates are going up.  Markets are volatile. Healthcare costs and insurance premiums are rising.  And interest rates are at all-time lows.

At the end of October, the U.S. Center for Retirement Research released a report that 51% of Americans are at risk of reduced living standards in retirement – including 42% of those in high income households. And if the cost of health care and long-term care were included, these numbers would be even higher.

We offer expertise on constructing portfolios to avoid running out of money.

BERK