1650 Wealth Management

Tom Balcom Speaker at May 2013 FPA Miami Meeting

Thomas Balcom — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:38:11 +0000

Tom Balcom, Founder of 1650 Wealth Management, was invited to speak to the financial advisors of the Financial Planning Association of Miami Dade on May 14, 2013, at the University of Miami, BankUnited Center located in Miami, Florida.

Tom shared his expertise on alternative investment strategies (structured notes) with over 70 financial advisors in attendance from the Miami area. Tom’s lecture entitled ” Structured Investments: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”, educated financial advisors on how utilizing sophisticated investment strategies, such as structured products (which are classified as alternative investments), can protect investors during bear markets.

Tom was recognized at the end of his lecture for his work and expertise in working with structured investments and received a plaque from the President of the Financial Planning Association of Miami Dade, Philip Herzberg.

1650 Wealth Management specializes in creating customized investment portfolio’s that include sophisticated alternative investments, such as Structured Notes. Structured Notes are utilized in investor’s portfolio’s for both their hedging benefits, as well as for magnifying potential gains. If you have questions related to sophisticated alternative investments and how they work or may benefit your current investment allocations, please call or email 1650 Wealth Management at 1.800.658.9560 or tombalcom@1650wealth.com.

1650 Wealth Management is a Fee-only, Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) firm located in South Florida with offices in Fort Lauderdale and Miami. The Certified Financial Planners (CFP®) at 1650 Wealth possess over 40 combined years of experience and specialize in investment and wealth management solutions for mass affluent and high net worth individuals.

Tom Balcom Interviewed by Structured Products Daily

Thomas Balcom — Sat, 04 May 2013 15:45:26 +0000

Tom Balcom, Founder of 1650 Wealth Management, was interviewed for the May 3, 2013 issue of Structured Products Daily. Tom was asked to analyze a New Issue Structured Note, from Credit Suisse. 1650 Wealth Management specializes in creating customized investment portfolio’s that include sophisticated alternative investments, such as Structured Notes. Structured Notes are utilized in investor’s portfolio’s for both their hedging benefits, as well as for magnifying potential gains.

You can read the headlined article entitled “Credit Suisse’s Leveraged Notes Linked to MSCI EM Favor Upside in Tight Pricing Environment” and Tom Balcom’s analysis by clicking the link below:

Structured Products_050313

If you have questions related to sophisticated alternative investments and how they work or may benefit your current investment allocations, please call or email 1650 Wealth Management at 1.800.658.9560 or tombalcom@1650wealth.com.

Why Are Investor’s Switching to RIA Firm’s?

Thomas Balcom — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 11:27:51 +0000

Recently, more investors have been leaving many of the large brokerage firms and switching to work with an Independent Registered Investment Advisor (RIA). Do you know how an Independent Registered Investment Advisor differs from a financial advisor or stock broker? Most investors don’t realize or understand the credentials behind their investment advisors name. The unregulated “financial advisor” title is used by many who work in the financial services industry, so it is of great importance for investors to educate themselves and take the time to understand who is managing their money and how they are paid.

Many financial advisors offer investment advice and financial planning services . However, there are fundamental differences between a financial advisor and an Independent Registered Investment Advisor (RIA), such as 1650 Wealth Management. A stock broker is typically compensated by receiving commissions for selling financial products to their clients and is typically not held to a fiduciary standard. RIA’s or Registered Investment Advisor’s are held to a fiduciary standard. This is a legal obligation to make decisions that are in the best interest of their client. When investors work with a wealth manager or financial advisor that is held to a fiduciary standard, it provides them with peace of mind, of knowing that their investment advisor is free from corporate mandates and conflicts of interests.

Insider Trading Hurts Everyone

Thomas Balcom — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 21:30:48 +0000

Tom Balcom, Founder of 1650 Wealth Management was interviewed by Susan Lion of NerdWallet.com. We have re-posted the article so you may read Tom’s advice below under Expert Opinions: What More Can Be Done to Curb Insider Trading? Or visit NerdWallet.com to read the article in its entirety.

Why Insider Trading Hurts Us, and How We Can Fix It

What is Insider Trading?

Insider trading occurs when someone – the ‘insider’ – uses information that has not been made public yet to trade a company’s stock or other securities, such as bonds and stock options. The insider can be anyone from a major shareholder to a CEO or company director. Insider trading is illegal because a corporate insider is supposed to represent the interests of the shareholders as opposed to his own interests.

The United States has severe penalties for illegal insider trading cases, but this does not mean all cases are caught. How bad is the problem, and what can be done to fix it?

Despite Costs to Society, Some Trading Based on Inside Information Can Be Legal

One thing that insider trading does is keep the wealth among insiders at the top, making it very difficult for everyday investors to profit as getting exclusive information is very costly, usually illegal, and relies on an individual being in a powerful position. Other arguments against insider trading are that it negatively affects investment growth and increases the price of a security.

That said, legal insider trading is pretty common and this what makes it so hard to punish those involved in illegal insider trading. There is a thin line between the two types of insider trading. Most of the time, CEOs and other company officers have lines in their contract that governs their trading. Even if they do come across nonpublic information, they can still profit from trades outlined in their original plan.

The problem is that tracking insider trading is like finding a needle in a haystack. It is like the case of the NCAA investigating illegal benefits procured by an athlete during his college career. Often, the biggest names are scrutinized extensively while others go unseen and unheard.

Private Sector: A hedge fund gone awry & a McKinsey CEO Sentenced

Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam is serving an 11-year prison term in Ayer, Massachusetts and on October 24, his close friend Rajat Gupta was also sentenced to a two-year sentence having provided Rajaratnam with illegal tips while serving on the board of Goldman Sachs. Here is a prime case of insider trading: industry bigwigs hobnobbing and making millions of dollars from illegal tips in the process.

Greed is what has motivated the two men to make insider trades; they were rolling wealth. Insider trading like other white collar crimes stems from participants having an insatiable nature. Rajaratnam has banked on insider information since the beginning of his career at Chase and then as an analyst at Needham. He often boasted about having insiders at firms such as Intel and other Silicon Valley success stories. Both men have suffered a fall from grace that is in league with some of the Greek tragedies.

Public Sector: Members of Congress, too

Any insider trades that Members of Congress do is legal and this prompted Congressman Spencer Bachus to take advantage of news of an imminent financial crisis. It was Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke that made the presentation to members of Congress. John Boehner and Senator Dick Durbin cashed in on the nonpublic information too.

Famous economists make the case for insider trading

Nobel laureate Milton Friedman argues that insider trading actually benefits investors and makes markets information efficient. Investors often follow the insiders lead as it has quite a high success rate. It should come as no surprise that when executives bought into a stock, it outperformed the market by 8.9% over the next year. CEOs and CFOs have access to crucial information that everyday investors can only dream of.

This is why investors tend to follow the insiders lead. Fortunately, it has gotten easier to gather insider trade data. Yahoo! Finance is a great source and it conveniently has an ‘Insiders’ section that lets you browse recent trades list. Another place investors can look for trading data is the SEC EDGAR Database.

Will it work to penalize harshly?

Defenders of inside traders like Microsoft founder Bill Gates and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the Rajat Gupta case always argue about the good turn done by the offenders to the community. ‘Everyone’s doing it’ and ‘let’s get ahead no matter what happens’ are the rationale for partaking in insider trading. As the world’s most successful democracy, the United States has done the right thing to punish this white-collar crime harshly. CEOs and top management in America are paid high levels of executive compensation when compared to other countries and they must preserve shareholder interests.

Nonetheless, insider trading remains one of the most litigious matters on Wall Street.

Expert Opinions: What More Can Be Done to Curb Insider Trading?

We turn to the professional and academic experts to hear what reforms they think would work best.

Professor Jin Xu, Assistant Professor of Finance with Purdue’s Krannert School of Management, lays out why regulating insider trading is not as easy as it sounds, and the best practices in shaping corporate governance incentives moving forward:

“There is still not enough certainty whether insider trading needs to be restricted. On the one hand, informed trading by insiders makes profits against uninformed outside investors. On the other hand, information transfer from insiders to outsiders through insider trading increases market liquidity. Furthermore, allowing insider trading may have implications on the incentives of corporate insiders (including executive officers). For example, my recent paper joint with David Denis at the University of Pittsburg finds that, cross countries, stricter insider trading regulations are associated with higher equity incentives given to corporate top executives. This result suggests that insider trading has important incentive effects on executives.

Now assume that insider trading is completely evil and we should get rid of it. The regulations in place include the original Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (in particular Section 16) and a series of amendments attempting to strengthen the insider trading rules. Today there are the short-swing profit rule, the insider-filing rule, and trading restrictions during pension blackout periods and so forth, where offenders can face criminal sentences. The regulators are watching such activities much more closely than twenty years ago as evident from the increasing number of insider trading cases brought up and convicted according to news media.

Have we done enough to curb insider trading? No one can tell. But insiders are certainly much more cautious today in that profits have to be really large for insiders to be willing to cross the line and that they have to do this in much more secret ways. So how do we fix the system? Prohibiting all trading by corporate insiders is not optimal. Perhaps we should try our best to restrict informed insider trading, i.e. that which is based on private information. Then identifying and proving certain transactions are “informed” is a daunting task and we almost have to rely on the regulators’ diligence in prosecution and possibly, advanced digital tracking system to detect “abnormal” trading patterns.”

Professor Robert Prentice, Chair of the Department of Business, Government and Society at UT Austin’s McCombs School of Business, argues that limited government resources need to be harnessed to implement Dodd-Frank and investigate the subprime mortgage crisis:

“Because insider trading is a pervasive problem that undermines the integrity of the U.S. capital markets, hurts people’s confidence in those markets, and thereby raises the costs of capital and retards economic growth, one may confidently conclude that we are not doing enough to curb insider trading. However, DOJ and the SEC, which recently have been more active in punishing insider trading than ever before, also face many other very important priorities that they must tackle with limited resources.

Personally, if I ran the SEC I would choose the current level of enforcement for insider trading and devote any additional resources to other priorities, such as implementing Dodd-Frank’s demanding but potentially useful provisions and bringing to justice more culprits (especially the higher level ones) behind the subprime mortgage debacle.”

Thomas Balcom, Founder of 1650 Wealth Management, presents one very simple fix for a very intricate problem:

“The solution to curbing insider trading is simple: Prevent insiders from selling or buying stock in their company to once a quarter or 4 times a year. This would cause executives to signal their bullishness or bearishness on their company very clearly to investors.”

Andrew Schrage, Co-Owner of Money Crashers Personal Finance, recognizes the need for additional political action to secure financial security:

“One measure recently taken to curb insider trading is the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, which was passed by Congress and approved by President Obama in April 2012. It restricts members of Congress from using “any nonpublic information derived from the individual’s position…or gained from performance of the individual’s duties, for personal benefit.” Politicians are also required to report any purchase or sale of a security over $1,000 within 45 days. It includes a variety of other restrictions aimed and limiting insider trading in Washington, D.C. The Federal Government has also become much more adept in the recent past at prosecuting insider trading cases. The U.S. attorney’s office for New York’s southern district has achieved guilty verdicts in its last eight cases.

That said, more needs to be done. Public companies need to reduce the number of employees who are privy to so-called “material” information. They must also ensure that the people who do have access to this information clearly understand what insider trading consists of. Another idea recently put forth to limit insider trading is to simply reduce the size of our Federal Government. The fewer people who have access to this information, the less risk there is of insider trading. The U.S. Government also needs to address the issue on a global scale. The fact of the matter is that insider trading is tolerated in many countries around the world.

Increase federal sentencing guidelines is also a possibility, but this will only be effective if judges use them to their fullest extent. Many judges in the recent past have issued stiff monetary fines for insider trading, but the associated prison terms were relatively lax.”

1650 Wealth Management Hosts Women & Wealth Seminar

Thomas Balcom — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 11:28:15 +0000

1650 Wealth Management is proud to host a financial education event geared specifically for women. The Power of a Plan: Women & Wealth seminar will be presented by Ms. Galey Gravenstein of Goldman Sachs on Wednesday, September 19, 2012, at Coral Ridge Country Club in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Women are expected to take on many different roles throughout their lifetimes. Whether you’re a stay-at-home wife and mom, divorcee, grandmother, primary breadwinner, or some combination of all of these, it’s important to stay on top of your finances.

Regardless of your role, up to 90% of women will have the sole responsibility for their finances at some point in their lives, thus it is important to understand when to invest, how to invest and which investments to choose.

The Power of a Plan: Women & Wealth is designed to uncover the unique investment challenges women face in all individual stages of life, and how women can overcome these challenges to build a more financially secure future.

Take charge of your future by joining us for this exclusive event!

Please RSVP by calling Tom Balcom at 1.800.658.9560 ext. 1.

1650 Wealth Management is a fee-only, Registered Investment Advisor (RIA) firm located in South Florida with offices in Fort Lauderdale and Miami. The award-winning Certified Financial Planning (CFP®) advisors at 1650 Wealth possess over 40 combined years of experience and specialize in investment and wealth management solutions for high net worth individuals, family trusts, charitable foundations and qualified retirement plans. For more information or to register for The 1650 Wealth Investment Commentary visit: http://www.1650wealth.com or follow 1650 Wealth on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/1650Wealth

Market Timing or Timing the Market?

Thomas Balcom — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 01:52:29 +0000

After experiencing the Great Recession of late 2008 and early 2009, investors may have questioned the merits associated with diversification. With most asset classes experiencing significant declines, the most seasoned of investors were forced to reevaluate their investment plans. Those who panicked and sold out of growth assets (stocks, REIT’s, commodities, high yield bonds) in late 2008 or early 2009 were disappointed to miss out on the strong rally that has occurred over the past 21 months. While hindsight is often 20/20, the Great Recession was another illustration that “Time In The Market” is often more important than “Timing the Market.“ The chart below is a good illustration of that point.

Investment advisors often hear stories from prospective clients about the money that was lost by investing in stocks, real estate or other assets. What is interesting about these stories is that they are often quite similar in nature. The novice investor seeks to chase gains in an asset class and enters at or near the top of the market. An example of this is the investor who purchases tech stocks in 1999 or banking stocks or real estate in the mid 2000’s. These investors were chasing gains that had already occurred within these asset classes. Chasing gains is often the quickest way to deplete an investor’s principal. A more prudent way to invest one’s nest egg is to diversify among a variety of asset classes preferably those that exhibit low or possibly negative correlation. This would result in an investor benefitting in most market environments by at least having one asset class with gains.

The chart below clearly depicts that some asset classes are “in favor” while others are “out of favor” for extended periods of time. During the 1970’s, the country was faced with the OPEC oil embargo resulting in gas shortages and long lines at service stations throughout the country. During this inflationary period, commodities were the best performing asset class. In the 1980’s, Japan’s market capitalization accounted for a majority of the foreign stock index (MSCI EAFE) and Japan’s housing boom led to this asset class outperforming all others during that decade. The decline in Japanese stock market which was known at the time as the “Lost Decade” coincided with the technology boom in the U.S. during the 1990’s. During this time, U.S. stocks dramatically outperformed all other asset classes. During the 2000’s, commercial real estate as measured by the Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) Index outperformed all other asset classes even after the dramatic declines experienced during the fall of 2008 and spring of 2009.

What is the lesson learned from this chart? The lesson relates to the fact that it is extremely difficult if not impossible to predict which asset class will outperform all others during this decade. Exposure in some degree to all these asset classes based upon your unique risk tolerance level would enable you to have a portion of your assets in the best performing asset class for the coming decade. Whether you are a do-it-yourself investor or currently work with a financial advisor, please ensure that your portfolio matches your short and long-term investment objectives as well as your risk tolerance level. In conclusion, the patient investor will tell you that it is often “time in” the market as opposed to “timing” the market that will allow you to reach your financial goals.

Asset Class 1970’s 1980’s 1990’s 2000’s 2010
Commodities 21.3% 10.7% 3.9% 5.1% 9.0%
Foreign Stocks 8.8 22.0 7.0 1.6 8.2
U.S. Stocks 5.9 17.5 18.2 -1.0 15.1
Real Estate (REIT’S) n/a 12.5 6.8 10.2 26.9
U.S. Bonds 7.5 12.4 7.7 6.3 6.5
Source: Morningstar, NAREIT, Standard & Poors

Tom Balcom Speaking at 2011 Structured Products Americas

Thomas Balcom — Wed, 04 May 2011 11:28:48 +0000

Tom Balcom Speaking at 2011 Structured Products Americas Conference

Tom Balcom, Founder of 1650 Wealth Management, was invited to speak on May 5, 2011 at the 6th Annual Structured Products Americas Conference ( http://www.structuredproductsamericas.com) hosted at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida. Tom utilizes structured notes as a risk mitigating tool within his clients’ portfolios and remains focused on researching new opportunities in this area. He will be discussing the utilization of structured products as a tool for diversifying a portfolio internationally. Tom was the recent winner of the Structured Products Association LeadingEdge Advisor Award ( http://www.ibiswealth.com/in-the-news/2008-leadingedge-advisor-award-winner/).

Welcome to Our Blog

Thomas Balcom — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:22:48 +0000

Welcome to 1650 Wealth Management’s blog! Our goal is to provide you with timely financial news that is relevant to your financial household, current investment affairs, and will answer many of the excellent financial questions we receive weekly from clients and will also keep you posted on the latest happenings at 1650 Wealth. Subscribe today with just your email address.

We are glad you stopped by to learn more about what we do and we hope we can help you with any financial questions you may have. Please call, email or stop by our offices. We look forward to hearing from you!
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CNBC Interviews Tom Balcom for Investor Special Report

Thomas Balcom — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 11:29:47 +0000

By: Shelly K. Schwartz,, Special to CNBC.com | 29 Mar 2011 | 01:59 PM ET

Assuming you have been unable to achieve paperless perfection, managing household records can be a tricky — never mind, time consuming — business, even for the uber organized.

If you keep every brokerage statement, pay stub and credit card bill you receive, you’ll have the production crew of “Hoarders” salivating in a matter of months.

But if you toss all your paper without a minimal holding period, you might be unable to flag errors in your account, defend yourself from the IRS, or prove ownership of property should a dispute ever arise.

Ah, the perennial pickle.

Tax season, though, is the perfect opportunity to attack your files and figure out what you can shred, what you should retain and how long you need to keep it.

“I don’t care if you have a fancy home office or an accordion folder,“ says Gail Cunningham of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. “You need to create a financial center in your house and get organized.”

There are obvious candidates for the file cabinet (preferably a fire-safe one) — basic legal documents you should keep forever.

That includes birth certificates, current passports, insurance and annuity contracts (for as long as they’re active), wills, Social Security cards, mortgage deeds, real estate bills of sale, marriage certificates, separation or divorce papers and medical records.

You should also keep diplomas and transcripts, adoption and custody papers, insurance records (accident reports, claims and policies) property appraisals, military discharge papers, and an itemized inventory of your household goods, necessary if you ever need to recover stolen items or settle an insurance claim.

For that reason, you should also retain receipts for all major purchases like rugs, jewelry and pianos, as proof of their value.

“I advise homeowners to get out a camera and walk around their house and take pictures of the contents of each room in case they ever have an insurance claim,” says Ted Beck, CEO of the National Endowment for Financial Education.
It’s wise, as well, to keep permanent records of any retirement and pension plan you have, especially those that involve nondeductible IRA contributions, so you can prove that the tax has been paid when you start to make withdrawals.

For an added measure of security, Beck says any legal records that would be hard to replace should be held in a safe deposit box at the bank, keeping all other important documents close at hand so that, in the event of an emergency, you have easy access.

What’s left, you ask? Tons.

Most of the rest of the paper that floods your mailbox has a limited shelf life, though probably a longer one than you would like.

Tax Forms

Tax records, for example, need not be held in perpetuity, but the rules here are less concrete.

Generally speaking, you should keep copies of your tax returns for a minimum of seven years, in case you need them to file an amended return or defend yourself in an audit.

The IRS can audit your returns for up to three years after you file if it determines you may owe additional tax, six years if it believes you underreported income by 25 percent or more and up to seven years if you file an incorrect claim for a capital loss from a worthless security.

There is no statute of limitations if you file a fraudulent return, or do not file a return.

That said, you might opt to simply keep your tax returns forever, which needn’t clutter your file cabinet if you scan the paperwork into your computer, back it up electronically and burn it onto a DVD for safekeeping in your safe deposit box.

“My policy is to scan and retain any document that involves value or title, specifically change of value or title,” says Stuart N. Speer, a certified financial planner with Central Financial Services in Kansas City, Ks. “Scanners are cheap and computer memories vast. There is no longer any motivation to destroy documents that might prove useful in making some future point, and which we can produce or conceal at our option.”

Supporting Documents

In addition to the actual tax return, of course, you’ll want to keep any records that help support deductions you claimed for as long as the IRS can contest your return.

That includes documents that show proof of income, like Forms W-2 and 1099, bank statements, brokerage statements and Form K-1.

If you own a home, you should also keep closing statements (since you’ll need information off of it when you sell), purchase and sales invoices and proof of payment and insurance records.

Likewise, the IRS says you’ll want to retain sales slips, invoices, receipts, canceled checks or other proof of payment and written communications from qualified charities relevant to a claim.

As for income or losses generated by your investments, the IRS suggests keeping year-end brokerage statements, mutual fund statements, and Forms 1099 and 2439.

Until all distributions are made from your IRA, the IRS also suggests that you keep copies of documents that show contributions made to your IRA, distributions received and the value of your IRA, along with Form 1099-R for each year you received a distribution and Form 8606 for each year you made a nondeductible contribution to your IRA or received distributions.

Other items you may need to keep for tax purposes: receipts for medical and dental expenses you paid with a distribution from Health Savings Account or Medical Savings Account, a written separation agreement or the divorce or support decree if you receive or pay alimony, records related to home office expenses (including gas bills and mortgage interest statements if you write off a portion for business use), medical receipts for a health or medical savings account, and other evidence for which you may have claimed a tax incentive, like moving expenses.

Most other paperwork that clutters your coffee table falls under the category of “as long as it’s useful.”

All investors, for example, should retain a record of their cost basis for any securities they own, which they’ll need when they go to sell it, says Tom Balcom, a certified financial planner with IBIS Wealth Management in Boca Raton, Fla., and president of the Financial Planning Association of Greater Ft. Lauderdale.

Your cost basis, the original price you paid, determines how much capital gains tax you’ll owe when you sell your shares. Without it, you could be forced to pay more than you owe.

“If you change brokerage firms, in particular, your cost basis information might get lost, so I always recommend keeping the last statement you receive from that firm so you know what your cost basis was,” says Balcom.

Monthly Statements

You can trash your monthly or quarterly brokerage statements as new ones arrive, unless it helps you keep track of your transactions, but keep your year-end statements indefinitely, says Beck.

He adds you should also keep your car title along with your record of service and any warranty information until you sell the vehicle, and keep credit card bills for no more than a year, unless you need them for your tax return.

“My policy is to find out what I have access to through online banking and for how long,” says Beck, noting some financial institutions limit your ability to search back statements to three months, while others remain available for several years. “All banks are different.”

It’s generally safe to trash your utility bills after the next month’s bill shows it was paid, again unless you’re claiming a home office deduction or tracking usage.

And likewise, you can shred (to ward off identity thieves) your paycheck stubs after a year once you’ve reconciled your income with your W-2 form at tax time, says Beck, but save the final paycheck you receive for each job you have and your last 401(k) statement before you leave. (It’ll help if the company gets sold or goes under and your retirement earnings come into question.)

“I’ve seen people try to unravel an old account and finding someone who can sign off on it is a very hard thing to do if you don’t have documentation,” he says.

The IRS also recommends keeping most canceled checks for seven years (in case of an audit), but those involving “important payments” like taxes, purchases of property, and special contracts should be permanently filed with the papers pertaining to the transaction.

Lastly, keep any receipts for major home improvement projects (not basic maintenance expenses), too, for as long as you own the property, along with the receipts for expenses related to its sale (realtor’s commission, legal fees) since you may be able to use them to increase the cost basis of your home when you go to sell — thus lowering the amount of capital gains tax you’ll potentially owe.

These days, of course, most banks and lenders are putting account information online, allowing clients to check balances and transactions for the last few years using a secure server.

But don’t assume your financial institutions are looking out for you.

“It’s always the case that the thing you need to save is the one you don’t have,” says Speer. “Credit card bills, pay stubs and financial statements in many instances are already online so it doesn’t take any time to just pull them up and save them as a PDF on your computer so you’ve got a second repository for all these documents. I do that and I advise my clients to do the same,” he says. “Put them in a folder, and the next time you need it, hallelujah! It’s there.”

Diversification or Timing the Market?

Thomas Balcom — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 11:30:23 +0000