Investor Know Thyself

In an ideal world, emotions would play a very small role in the way people invest and manage their money. Everyone would thoroughly research their options, maintain realistic expectations, and keep counterproductive habits under control.

But in the real world, even well-informed investors sometimes make emotionally charged decisions that may threaten their ability to stay focused on important financial goals, such as accumulating enough money for retirement. In fact, such missteps are so common that many academics have done extensive research on “investor psychology” or “behavioral finance” to explain why some people tend to keep encountering the same obstacles in their financial lives.

Behavior Insights

As you might imagine, different financial attitudes can result in very different consequences. For example, the behavior known as “anchoring” is the tendency for investors to hold on to a belief based on their own limited experience, despite the availability of contradictory information.

For instance, someone who lived through the Great Depression might be more likely to be a conservative investor, while someone who did very well in the market during the 1990s might tend to be a more aggressive investor. Of course, history shows that that type of decline or growth experienced by such individuals, is more the exception than the norm. As such, one possible result of anchoring is making long-term investment decisions based on misguided performance expectations or incomplete facts.

Overconfidence in one’s own abilities is another mindset that could make it more difficult to achieve lasting financial security. Why? Because it may lead investors to ignore sound advice, misunderstand goals, and potentially implement inappropriate investment strategies. On the other hand, a lack of confidence may be to blame for the “fear of loss” (or “fear of regret”) that causes some nervous investors to adjust their portfolios too often — or not often enough.

You’ve Got Personality

It can also be insightful to think about what type of “financial personality” you have. “Impulsives,” for example, are prone to spending spontaneously and not saving enough. “Planners,” however, are in the habit of setting aside as much as possible and sticking to an appropriate investment strategy.

If you would like to discuss your financial personality or any other financial planning matters, please don’t hesitate to contact us or visit our website at http://www.ydfs.com. We are a fee-only fiduciary financial planning firm that always puts your interests first.  If you are not a client yet, an initial consultation is complimentary and there is never any pressure or hidden sales pitch.

Providing for Pets

This past summer, the entertainment world lost one of its most prominent and popular figures: Joan Rivers. When her estate planning documents were unveiled, it became clear that she was a careful planner of her legacy–and also a devoted pet owner. One of the most interesting details of her estate plan was the careful provisions Rivers made for her pets.

Rivers left the bulk of her estate to her daughter Melissa and her grandson Cooper–an estimated $150 million in total value. The two rescue dogs who shared her New York residence, and two other dogs who lived at her home in California, were beneficiaries of pet trusts, which included an undisclosed amount of money set aside for their ongoing care, and carefully written provisions that described the standard of living that Rivers expected them to receive for the remainder of their lives.

Traditional pet trusts are honored in most U.S. states, as are statutory pet trusts, which are simpler. In a traditional trust, the owner lists the duties and responsibilities of the designated new owner of the pets, while the statutory trusts incorporate basic default provisions that give caregivers broad discretion to use their judgment to care for the animals. Typical provisions include the type of food the animal enjoys, taking the dog for daily walks, plus regular veterinary visits and care if the pet becomes ill or injured. The most important provision in your pet trust, according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, is to select a person who loves animals and, ideally, loves your pets.

The trust document will often name a trustee who will oversee the level of care, and a different person will be named as the actual caregiver. In all cases, the trusts terminate upon the death of the last surviving animal beneficiary, and the owner should choose who will receive those residual assets.

Some states have different laws that require different arrangements. Idaho allows for the creation of a purpose trust, and Wisconsin’s statute provides for an “honorary trust” arrangement. There are no pet trust provisions on the legal books in Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota and Mississippi, but pet owners living there can create a living trust for their pets or put a provision in their will which specifies the care for pets. A popular (and relatively simple) alternative is to set aside an amount of money in the will to go to the selected caregiver, with a request that the money be used on behalf of the pet’s ongoing care.

It should be noted that a pet trust is not designed to pass on great amounts of wealth into the total net worth of the animal kingdom. The poster child of an extravagant settlement is Leona Helmsley’s bequest of $12 million to her White Maltese, instantly putting the dog, named “trouble,” into the ranks of America’s one-percenters. Rather than confer a financial legacy on an animal, the goal should be to ease any financial burdens the successor owner might incur when caring properly for your loved animals for the remainder of their lives, including food and veterinary bills.

How long should you plan for the funding to last? Cats and dogs typically live 10-14 years, but some cats have lived to age 30, and some dogs can survive to see their 24th birthday. Interestingly, estate planners are starting to see some pet trusts extend out for rather lengthy periods of time, as owners buy pets that have longer lifespans. For example, if an elderly person has a Macaw parrot as a companion, the animal could easily outlive several successor owners, with a lifespan of 80-100 years. Horse owners should plan for a life expectancy of 25-30 years, and, since horses tend to be expensive to care for, the trust will almost certainly require greater levels of funding. On the extreme end, if you know anyone who happens to have a cuddly Galapagos giant tortoise contentedly roaming their backyard, let them know that their pet trust would need to be set up for an average 190-year lifespan.

If you would like to discuss your estate planning or any other financial planning matters, please don’t hesitate to contact us or visit our website at http://www.ydfs.com. We are a fee-only fiduciary financial planning firm that always puts your interests first.  If you are not a client yet, an initial consultation is complimentary and there is never any pressure or hidden sales pitch.

Sources:
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/09/11/what-joan-rivers-just-taught-pet-lovers-about-estate-planning/
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2014/08/14/robin-williams-estate-plan-spares-his-heirs-drama/
http://www.1800petmeds.com/education/life-expectancy-dog-cat-40.htm
http://abcnews.go.com/US/leona-helmsleys-dog-trouble-richest-world-dies-12/story?id=13810168
http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/planning-for-your-pets-future/pet-trust-primer

Why Losses Really Do Matter

Everybody who told us that the steep market drops earlier this month wouldn’t last can rightly claim they’re right.  When the S&P 500 was down 7.4% during a two-week sell off, there was no way to know whether we’d have to endure more of the same.  Staying the course turned out to be exactly the right strategy, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be concerned about downside risk.  In fact, during the downturn, all of us should have been working hard to keep our portfolios from falling as far and as fast as the American indices.

Isn’t this a contradiction?  There is no contradiction between holding on during market downturns and building portfolios that are unlikely to keep pace with a bear market free-fall.  You hold on because no living person knows when the stock markets will recover, but history tells us that they always do seem to recover and eventually deliver returns that are higher, on average, than the returns you get when the money is safely stored under your mattress.

But you also pay attention to downturns because the further your portfolio falls, the harder it is to recover.  There’s actually a rational reason why you tend to fear losses more than you enjoy your gains.

The mathematics show the asymmetrical effect of losses vs. gains.  If your $1 million portfolio loses 10%, falling to $900,000, then it requires an 11.11% gain to get you back where you started.  It doesn’t seem fair, but that’s how it is.  A 20% loss requires a 25% gain, and if your portfolio were to drop 40%, you’d need a subsequent 66.67% gain to climb back to your original $1 million nest egg.

Chances are, you know how we fortify portfolios against losses: we include a variety of different types of assets–including bonds which, against every single market prediction at the start of the year, are actually delivering positive returns almost all the way across the maturity spectrum.  We include foreign stocks, which haven’t exactly been knocking the lights out this year, but which will, someday, offer strong gains when the U.S. markets are weakening.  Also, we take profits on positions that have reached their price targets and hedge portfolios with inverse funds.  All of these different movements tend to have a calming effect on the portfolio’s returns, not always in every circumstance, but fairly reliably over time.

The result?  A smoother ride puts more money in your pocket.  If an investor experienced returns of +20% and -10% in alternate years over the next 20 years, a $100,000 portfolio would grow to just under $216,000.  If a more diversified investor experienced a smoother ride of 10% a year, her portfolio would grow to just under $673,000.  The power of steady compounding is a marvelous thing to see.  The drag of losses can be debilitating to a portfolio’s growth.

You won’t experience either of those trajectories exactly, of course.  But if you can somehow avoid the worst of the market’s falls, even if it means never beating the market during the up-cycles, you raise your chances of long-term success.  If you can do this and remain invested through a lot of uncertainty, like we experienced earlier this month, chances are you’ll enjoy better long-term returns than a lot of the “experts” you see screaming at you to buy or sell on the cable finance channels.

Oh, and that 7.4% drop?  The S&P 500 has to go up 8% to recover the ground it lost in that two-week period.  As of today, we’ve recovered that entire loss.

Bequest or Beneficiary: In Estate Planning, the Difference Is Crucial

When planning your estate, be sure you understand the differences between bequests spelled out in a will and beneficiary designations incorporated in retirement accounts.

The scenario plays out over and over again in attorneys’ offices: A family brings a parent’s will to be probated. The will is complete, well-thought-out, and takes into consideration current tax law. But under closer examination, the attorney discovers that the deceased’s estate plan doesn’t work. Why? Because a substantial portion of the parent’s assets pass by beneficiary designation and are not controlled by a will.

Increasingly, investors have the opportunity to name beneficiaries directly on a wide range of financial accounts, including employer-sponsored retirement savings plans, IRAs, brokerage and bank accounts, insurance policies, U.S. savings bonds, mutual funds, and individual stocks and bonds.

The upside of these arrangements is that when the account holder dies, the monies go directly to the beneficiary named on the account, bypassing the sometimes lengthy and costly probate process. The “fatal flaw” of beneficiary-designated assets is that because they are not considered probate assets, they pass “under the radar screen” and trump the directions spelled out in a will. This all too often leads to unintended consequences — individuals who you no longer wish to inherit property do, some individuals receive more than you intended, some receive less, and ultimately, there may not be enough money available to fund the bequests you laid out in your will.

Unnamed or Lapsed Beneficiaries

Not naming beneficiaries or failing to update forms if a beneficiary dies can have its own unintended repercussions, which can be particularly damaging in the case of retirement accounts. For instance, if the beneficiary of an IRA is a spouse and he or she predeceases the account holder and no contingent (second in line) beneficiary(ies) are named, when the account holder dies, the IRA typically would pass to the estate instead of the children directly as the account holder likely would have preferred. This not only would generate a tax bill for the children, it would also prevent them from stretching IRA distributions out over their lifetime.

Planning Priorities

Given these very real consequences, it is important to work with an estate planning professional to ensure coordination between your beneficiary-designated assets and the disposition of property as it is spelled out in your will.

You should also review your beneficiary designations on a regular basis — at least every few years — and/or when certain life events occur, such as the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, a divorce or a marriage, and update them, as necessary, in accordance with your wishes.

Are Daughters a Better “Investment?”

As Father’s Day has now passed for this year, a new survey from the online account aggregation firm Yodlee.com and Harris Interactive tells us that the financial relationship between fathers (and parents) can be very different for their sons vs. their daughters.  The survey found that an astonishing 75% of young adult men (age 18-34) are receiving financial aid from their parents, compared with 59% for comparable age daughters.  The financial dependency extends deep into adulthood; among sons aged 35-44, fully 32% are still living at home, while only 9% of women in that age bracket sleep in their former bedroom.  Even those numbers understate the disparity, because more than a third of the women who are living with their parents are doing so to support them in old age, something that sons are, according to the report, far less likely to do.
 
Overall, daughters are 32% less likely to need their parents’ money, and twice as likely to move back home because they’re unemployed.  By age 45, the survey found, most of these stark differences in financial independence have faded; sons lag only a few percentage points behind daughters in these two areas.  But then a new discrepancy emerges.  The survey found that older sons are half as likely as daughters to support their parents in old age. 

If you have any questions about any financial planning or money management services, please don’t hesitate to contact us or visit our web site athttp://www.ydfs.com. As a fee-only fiduciary financial planning firm, we always put your interests first, and there’s never a charge for an initial consultation or any sales pitches.
 
Sources:  

http://www.businessinsider.com/daughters-require-less-financial-support-2014-6
 
http://time.com/money/2861530/daughter-better-investment-than-son/

Retirement Spending Revisited

How much are you going to spend in retirement?  What once seemed like a simple question has become incredibly complicated in recent years.
 
Why?  First of all, a diminishing number of people actually plan to leave work and embrace leisure on a full-time basis, and those who do, seem to be doing it later than people from earlier generations.  Of the oldest baby boomers, who are now age 68, only 52% are actually retired;  21% are still working full-time.   According to a Gallup survey, 37% of Americans say they plan to work full-time past the age of 65, but that may be underestimating the actual shift in preference.  A 2012 survey conducted by Transamerica found that just 19% of workers expect to retire full-time by age 65.
 
When people DO leave the workplace, it now appears that some of the assumptions about their spending habits will have to be revisited.  The default assumption for many retirement plans is that what you spend now for things like food, clothing etc. will remain pretty much the same the day after retirement as they were the day before.  Your home mortgage may or may not go away in retirement and the expenses related to commuting to and from work will diminish.  When you sort it all out, you end up with a baseline spending plan, which includes a new car every few years, dining out occasionally, making home improvements and other basic necessities.  These expenses have traditionally been assumed to increase each year roughly with the inflation rate.
 
On top of that, it was assumed that in the vigorous early years of retirement, people would spend more on travel and country club memberships than they did when they were working, so their overall expenses would go up the day after they retire and gradually diminish as they found it harder and harder to play 18 holes of golf every day.  At some point in the age curve, health expenses would start to rise.  The people who study retirement expenditures talked about a “smile” graph of expenses, where it cost more to live and play in the earlier and later years of retirement than in the middle years.
 
What’s wrong with that?  For one thing, when you look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics data on what people actually spend in their later years, it contradicts this comfortable smile pattern.  People between the ages of 65 and 74 tended, on average, to increase their annual spending levels between 1.11 percentage points and 1.78 percentage points more per year more than the inflation rate.  Over that decade of their lives, any assumption that used the inflation rate would undercount their aggregate spending by somewhere between 11% and 19%.  People age 75 and older accelerated their actual spending to (again over the course of the next decade) between 13% and 22% more than the inflation statistics would suggest.  After that, healthcare costs would start to dominate the spending pattern.
 
To make things more complicated, the statistics suggest that retirees tend to cut back on their spending whenever the investment markets go down.  In 2009, people age 75 and older, on average, spent less than they did the year before, and they actually spent less than that in 2010.  That same year, the average spending of people age 65-75 declined a remarkable 3.55%.  As your wealth goes down, so too does your spending.
 
How can we predict these things in advance?  We can’t.  And it’s important to remember that these broad statistics don’t apply to your individual circumstances; they just suggest things that most of us should watch out for.  The only clear conclusion of the research, thus far, is that we should probably make conservative assumptions about spending, and hope we’re pleasantly surprised as the years go on.

If you have any questions about retirement spending or planning or would like to discuss your personal circumstances, please don’t hesitate to contact us, or go tohttp://www.ydfs.com.  We are a fiduciary fee-only financial planning firm that always puts your interests first.
 
Sources:
 
Retirement:
http://capricorn.bc.edu/agingandwork/database/browse/facts/fact_record/5670/all
 
Spending:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hedonic-pleasure-index-going-beyond-the-cpi-2013-01-23
 
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/newsletters12/47-fallacies2.php

Bad Money Moves to Avoid

What are truly the very worst investments and financial products you can buy with your money? Those things that when all things are considered provide you the lowest chance for profit. 

According to the AARP, they include five primary types: alternative investments, time-shares, equity-indexed annuities, private and non-traded REITs, and oil drilling partnerships. You can read why each are to be avoided right here. To that list I would add most permanent (whole, universal, variable) life insurance policies, deferred annuities and non-publicly traded partnerships. 
 
In that same article, AARP also provided five clues to watch for to tell you when something isn’t right about an investment that is being sold to you. These are all good things to watch for:
 
1. An impossible promise: There’s no such thing as high returns with little or no risk. The best opportunities typically go to institutional investors: it’s much easier to raise money from a few big fish than to solicit thousands of small fry.
 
2. Complex terms: Perhaps the offer comes with hundreds of pages of technical and legal disclosure, and you’re required to sign a document saying you read and understood it all. Good investments are easy to grasp. My rule is never to buy anything I couldn’t explain to an 8-year-old. Ask yourself: would they write hundreds of (legal) pages to protect you or themselves?
 
3. A ticking clock: If you hear that this investment opportunity is available only for a short time, it’s the reddest of flags. The salesperson doesn’t want you to think it over or ask others for their opinion. Run, don’t walk away from these investments.
 
4. Fancy language: That would be words such as “structured,” “managed,” “deferred,” “derivative,” “collateralized” and even “guaranteed.” Of course, there is nothing wrong with an FDIC guarantee on your CD. But leaving cash at a bank or brokerage firm is a bad investment if you are earning 3 percent or less: you’re losing ground to inflation. A higher-paying CD is a better option if you’re not willing to take risk with your money.
 
5. A stranger calls: Be very careful of accepting a free-lunch “educational seminar.” I have yet to meet someone unknown to me who truly wanted to and could make me rich. Someone once said that you truly can’t afford “free”, and I have come to believe it.
 
Millions of investors fall prey to bad investments usually out of fear or ignorance. In addition, no matter how smart you may be or how much experience you have, studies also show that all of us can be very gullible and blinded by our greed.

Nevertheless, knowing what to avoid is an important part of being successful with investing and managing risk. Most of the time, anything sold to you by others as terrific alternatives to equities and fixed income, especially those with lots of hype, complexity and outrageous fees, must be avoided. Eliminating these bad investments from your consideration and portfolios is a must if you desire to give yourself the best chance for long-term investing and financial success.

If you have any questions about any investments or insurance products you might be considering, please don’t hesitate to contact us or visit our web site athttp://www.ydfs.com. As a fee-only fiduciary financial planning firm, we always put your interests first, and there’s never a charge for an initial consultation.

Sources:

AARP

The Kirk Report

What is Uncle Sam doing with your tax money?

Now that your tax money is in the hands of Uncle Sam, what will he do with it?  How will the government allocate your contribution to the overall budget?
 
Your Social Security payments are easy; they go to pay Social Security benefits to current retirees, and for now (the future is another matter), they fully fund that obligation. Some of that money also goes to cover a portion of Medicare’s expenses; the remainder is covered by general federal revenue.
 
Your income taxes are divided among several broad budgetary categories.  A surprisingly large chunk is spent on the military (27%) and military-related veteran’s benefits (5.1%).  Another 22.7% goes to various forms of healthcare for U.S. residents, including the rest of the Medicare bill plus Medicaid.  13.9% of your tax money goes to pay interest on Uncle Sam’s debt–paid out to Treasury bill and bond holders every six months.  Unemployment benefits take up another 9.8%.
 
In the “Everything Else” category on the government spending pie chart, a surprisingly low 4.5% is spent on running the government, including various agencies such as the FBI and immigration services.  A total of 4% goes to housing programs, community development and block grants, while education gets a 2% slice of the pie–for programs like Head Start, and also the Pell Grants for college students.  Less than 2% is spent on scientific research, international affairs, transportation and energy.
 
If you’d like to get a receipt from the government for your taxes paid, which itemizes how that money is spent, well, good luck petitioning the IRS.  But you can get a fairly accurate receipt from the National Priorities Project here: http://nationalpriorities.org/interactive-data/taxday/. Just type in this year’s tax payment from your 1040, find your state, click a button and you’ll see what you paid for in terms of government services, interest and overhead.  Depending on how you feel about our government spending priorities, it may make your tax experience more or less painful.

If you have any questions about how to plan to pay less in taxes through tax and financial planning, please don’t hesitate to contact or visit us at www.ydfs.com.
 
 
Sources:
 
http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/11/pf/taxes/how-federal-income-taxes-are-spent/index.html
 
http://nationalpriorities.org/interactive-data/taxday/

Employers Ramping Up Retirement Plan Features

Employers are enhancing their retirement plans and increasing access to professional investment advice in an attempt to bolster employee retirement readiness.

A new study by Aon Hewitt, which polled more than 400 plan sponsors serving 10 million plan participants, revealed a number of initiatives being taken to strengthen employee ability to achieve greater financial security in retirement. Key actions include the following:

  • Boosting employer matching funds: The percentage of employers offering dollar-for-dollar matches on the first 6% of employee contributions, has nearly doubled in the past two years, from 10% in 2011 to 19% today. And virtually all employers now offer some level of matching contributions.
  • Offering immediate eligibility: Three out of four employers now allow employees to begin participating in a workplace retirement plan as of their hire date — a dramatic increase over the 45% of employers that offered immediate plan eligibility in 2001. In addition, more than half of employers also offer “day one” access to employer matching contributions.
  • Providing access to Roth-style plans: Giving plan participants the option of choosing between a standard defined contribution plan and a Roth-style plan has become a priority for more employers in the past several years. Now 50% of employers allow Roth contributions (up 11% since 2008), and of those who offer the Roth option, 27% currently allow in-plan Roth conversions. Another 16% will offer this feature within the year.
  • Offering access to a range of advisory services: One of the fastest-growing benefit trends is the availability of various types of professional guidance, which is now offered by three out of four plan sponsors. One-on-one financial counseling tops the list (with 59% of plans offering), followed by online guidance (55% of plans), and managed accounts (52% — a significant jump from just two years ago when only 29% of plans offered this feature). Target-date funds — another form of investment guidance — are well into the acceptance curve, with 86% of plan sponsors offering them.

If you have any questions about your employer retirement/benefit plans or any other fee-only fiduciary financial planning matters, please don’t hesitate to contact us or visit http://www.ydfs.com.

Source:  Aon Hewitt news release, October 30, 2013.

Taking Distributions from 529 College Savings Plans

Parents looking to take advantage of the many benefits of saving for college with a 529 plan will want to know the full details of which educational expenses qualify for tax-free distribution status — and which do not.1 In Publication 970, the IRS gives detailed guidance on qualified expenses. Here are a few important points:

What’s Covered

 Tuition and fees are covered in full.

  • Room and board, if the student is enrolled at least half time. But such expense must be not more than the greater of (1) the allowance for room and board, as determined by the school, that was included in the cost of attendance; or (2) the actual amount charged if the student is residing in housing owned or operated by the school.
  • Food. If you spend a certain amount for a meal plan, that entire amount can be deducted, even if used for coffee or ice cream and not a full meal. Weekend meals can also be included if the dining halls are not open.
  • Books and supplies. Any fees associated with purchasing school textbooks are considered qualified, as are required equipment or supplies such as notebooks and writing tools.
  • Computers/laptops, but only if required by the school. If required, Internet fees and PDAs or “smartphones” may also qualify. The Savings Enhancement for Education in College Act (H.R. 529) that is currently being considered by Congress would expand this definition to apply to all computer technology used by the student.
  • Special needs services required by special-needs students that are incurred in connection with enrollment or attendance at school.

 What’s Not Covered

 Student loans. Interest on or repayment of student loans is not considered a qualified expense by the IRS.

  • Insurance, sports or club activity fees, and many other types of fees that may be charged to students but are not required as a condition of enrollment.
  • Transportation to and from school.
  • Concert tickets or other entertainment costs, unless attendance is requisite to a course or curriculum.
  • Note that expenses must apply to a qualified college, university, or vocational school for post-secondary educational expenses. Also keep in mind that taxes and a possible 10% additional federal tax will apply to all distributions that are not considered qualified educational expenses by the IRS, so be sure to check first.

If you have any questions about saving and investing for college, please don’t hesitate to contact us or visit http://www.ydfs.com

1By investing in a 529 plan outside of the state in which you pay taxes, you may lose the tax benefits offered by that state’s plan. Withdrawals used for qualified expenses are federally tax free. Tax treatment at the state level may vary.