Published Articles
Town asks county to dredge Northport Harbor (February 12, 2009)
Last month the town requested a maintenance dredging operation in Northport Harbor from Suffolk County.
The project was instigated early last year by the Greater Huntington Council of Yacht & Boating Clubs. The group represents 20 local boating clubs and organizations and one of its core issues is promoting boating safety.
Patience Pays in a Bear Market (January 15, 2009)
By Janet Aschkenasy | MainStreet.com
If you want to benefit from the stock market’s deep declines and ultimate rebound, then you’ve got to be in it to win it. That means braving the environment we’re in right now.
Read Article >
Retirement Rules: Longevity Costs More Than You Think (January 21, 2009)
These days many workers 55 and older have no realistic financial plan as they approach their retirement. Often they fail to calculate in advance what they’ll need for retirement and do not think about how they will budget when they’re no longer earning a regular salary. Some may retire too soon with insufficient funds. Others might tap resources such as 401(k) accounts or Social Security much too early.
Patience Pays in a Bear Market (January 9, 2009)
If you want to benefit from the stock market’s deep declines and ultimate rebound, then you’ve got to be in it to win it. That means braving the environment we’re in right now.
What the New 401(k) Rules Could Mean for You (January 5, 2009)
However you slice it, the 401(k) is the most popular retirement plan in the country.
So how can it be that no rules anywhere explicitly spell out what employers need to offer their 401(k) participants so they’ll understand what products and services they’re getting and what fees are being charged?
That is about to change—and fast.
TIME FOR A MID-YEAR FINANCIAL CHECKUP (June 2007)
You did what you were supposed to do financially at the start of the year. You established or reviewed your financial plan to be sure its goals and strategies were still appropriate, rebalanced your investment portfolio, made sure your estate plan was in place, checked your insurance coverage, and so on. Now it’s time to give yourself a round of applause.
WHAT IS THE REAL REASON YOU SHOULD INVEST? (May 2007)
Most people think they know the answer to the above question of why should they invest. Yet, all too often, many people invest for the wrong reasons — and that can lead to financial difficulties.
NEW PENSION PROTECTION ACT OF 2006: PROMOTES SAVINGS, PROTECTS PENSIONS (February 2007)
It’s been described as the most sweeping pension legislation in more than three decades. The new Pension Protection Act of 2006 (signed into law by President Bush on August 17), includes
provisions designed to strengthen traditional pension plans that now represent some 44 million American workers and retirees.
The Importance Of A Financial Checkup
It's one of the six steps of the financial planning process. But, oftentimes, it's the one step that gets overlooked. It's the sixth step - annual financial check-up
The annual financial check-up is indeed the most important of the fiinancial planning steps. And yet, financial planners and clients sometimes downplay its significance.
What is the annual review and why is it so important? In short, the annual review is the opportunity to measure a client's progress against thei plan of action. It's also the one time when planners and clients can examine the many changes that typically occur in any given 12-month period - the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, a major purchase - and then readjust the client's financial plan, charting a new course if need be or further affirming the client's progress towards their personal financial goal achievement.
Indeed, lives are seldom static and that's why financial plans are not necessarily set-and-forget documents. But what exactly should financial planners and clients examine in their annual meetings? And when should they conduct their annual meetings?
Typically, financial planners will collect a client's data, prioritize their goals, examine their resources, make recommendations, and implement a plan as part of the financial planning process. In an annual review, the financial planner will do much of the same and then some. They will first typically examine a client's progress against the plan time frames. This sort of monitoring benefits both planners and their clients. Clients get an opportunity to step back from their busy lives and review their goals and confirm that their priorities remain the same. Planners have a chance to reconnect with their clients to affirm their positive actions towards goal acheivement or to help refocus them so that they don't get too far off track. And planners get a chance to enhance the relationship and trust.
In some cases, planners and clients will want to establish a regular appointment, meeting on an annual basis, and in some cases on a quarterly or semi-annual basis. Typically, the planner and client will review in these meetings short-term goals, examining what if anything may have changed. In some cases, the planner will make changes to a client's investment potfolio in light of tactical or strategic asset allocation models in place. In other cases, a planner will suggest changes based on certain life events. The birth of a child or grandchild may require a discussion about 529 plans. A divorce may require changing beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance policies.
In addition a planner may want to review with their clients new research that has become available in the interim to either confirm rationale or provide a basis to alter a client's short-term or long-term strategies. For instance, new reseearch that shows the escalating costs of nursing homes or health care in retirement wouldn't change the goal of "secure long-term retirement", but it would change the strategy to achieve that goal.
Besides reviewing family developments, planners would also address in an annual review regulatory and other changes that could effect adversely or positively a client's financial plan. The new Medicare Part D plan or the introduction of the ROTH 401(k) could prove useful to some clients. In other cases, the annual review is a chance to review potential changes - changes in the federal estate tax laaws, for instance, and to devise possible plans of action.
Planners and clients will often want to measure the "performance" of the investment portfolio as part of the annual review. Typically, performance should be measured against several benchmarks, the most imortant of which is the client's own personal goals. For instance, if the planner and the client established that a portfolio should grow by 5 percent per year before taxes then the performance should be measured against that yardstick. To be sure, int's important that portfolios be measured against standard benchmarks. But only as a point of reference. Meeting personal investment goals is far more important than over performing or underperforming the Dow Jones industrial average. By and large, it's imprudent of planners and clients to make wholesale changes to a portfolio based solely on a quarter as well as one year of performance.
In summary, annual reviews provide a chance for planners to examine a client's long-term goals. These reviews can establish whether the client is generally on course to meet their goals. It's also a chance to review changes that have occurred and begin to anticipate changes that may accur. It's a chance to implement any new plan of action that has been developed in light of changing goals or changing performance. And then last, the annual review provides the perfect opportunity to establish future review meetings.
One of the most important worksheets to review is a balance sheet or net worth statement. If reaching all of the client's goals will require a net worth of $1 million at some point in the future, it is the balance sheet that will demonstrate movement toward or away from that goal. It is a road map. When going oout of town, a map is almost always consulted before and during the trip. Progress toward your ultimate destination is noted by each passing town or landmark. It is easy to see when you move off track and what corrections should be made to get you back on the correct path in the least amount of time or distance. The balance sheet measures your progress toward your monetary goal in a finite manner. What the numbers show from year-to-year are not as important as what they show after several years looked at as a whole.
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