Finding Your Fiduciary Financial Advisor
When you are selecting or retaining a financial advisor, how do you know if you are making the best choice?
When it comes to investing, our message has long been loud and clear. Build a well-structured portfolio to capture available market returns while managing the risks involved. Shape it to meet your individual goals and risk tolerances. Keep a lid on the costs. Stay on target over time.
That is all well and good, but what if you have been investing a while, but you do not yet have that well-structured portfolio?
The more wealth you accumulate, the more chaotic your assets and accounts can become. What begins as a manageable assortment (hopefully) grows. That is a good “problem” to have, but the sheer volume can eventually overwhelm your organizational efforts.
Then what? Fortunately, it is never too late to bring order to your investment universe. Today, we will take a look at how to move from random results to a more organized approach.
A great way to get started is to figure out where you stand today. What do you currently own? Where are you holding it, and why? Bonus points if you can determine how much your current holdings are costing you in apparent and hidden fees.
Next, it is time to plan, and document, what your orderly investment universe looks like, and how you expect to get there. Having a plan in place can feel incredibly empowering if your investments have gotten out of hand. You can stop taking pot shots at your wealth and begin aiming at your tailored targets.
Strategy: How much risk and expected return are you shooting for? Do you have the time and temerity to take on more investment risk, hoping for higher returns? Or are you better served with a more modest approach, less “exciting” but less likely to fall apart in a pinch?
Target: If you could start with a clean slate for creating your “perfect” investment portfolio, what would that look like? How many stocks vs. bonds, international vs. domestic, and so on? What would be the best funds or securities for achieving your aim?
Tactics: Which of your current investments no longer make sense for your plans? Which might be replaced with better-managed, lower-cost equivalents? What pieces are missing?
If you have accumulated a vast clutter of capital, you are likely to want to do some remodeling such as selling unnecessary or overpriced positions, buying others that are a better fit, streamlining duplicate assets and accounts, and otherwise rearranging your financial furniture.
In a tax-free world, you could proceed at full speed. In real life, when you sell positions for more than you paid for them, there can be burdensome capital gain taxes realized in the year of the sale. Plus, if you generate enough taxable gains in a year, it could bump you into a higher tax bracket, which could increase your tax rates across a wider swath of your total annual income.
How do you pursue a tidy transition, given the challenges involved? It helps to identify which trades can be placed promptly, and which may be better managed over time.
Stay tuned for the next part of this series, where we will take a look at transaction and taxes.
This post was written and first distributed by Wendy J. Cook.
DISCLAIMERS
This material is intended for general public use. By providing this material, we are not undertaking to provide investment advice for any specific individual or situation, or to otherwise act in a fiduciary capacity. Please contact one of our financial professionals for guidance and information specific to your individual situation. This is not an offer to buy or sell a security.
Shore Point Advisors is an investment adviser located in Brielle, New Jersey. Shore Point Advisors is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Registration of an investment adviser does not imply any specific level of skill or training and does not constitute an endorsement of the firm by the Commission. Shore Point Advisors only transacts business in states in which it is properly registered or is excluded or exempted from registration. Insurance products and services are offered through JCL Financial, LLC (“JCL”). Shore Point Advisors and JCL are affiliated entities.
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