It's crucial that you know where you stand financially BEFORE you retire!

It's crucial that you know where you stand financially BEFORE you retire!

A recent post by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College regarding the findings of an HSBC retirement survey points to the troubling trend of folks coming up short, in terms of their retirement readiness i.e., not having enough money to maintain their lifestyles throughout retirement.

While this isn't surprising news, given the fact that every single piece of research in recent years has basically arrived at the same conclusion, what caught my attention – and hopefully yours, as well – is that of the startling number of folks who find themselves in this predicament, about two out of five said they “did not realize that their preparation had fallen short until it was far too late"

Let me remind you that we are talking about real people with real lives – and not a single one of them intended to spend their retirement this way.

But why is this happening?

Maybe they had the wrong investment portfolios. Or perhaps they didn’t save nearly enough.

Personally, I don't believe that any sane person will intentionally drop the ball when it comes to their retirement nest egg. Obviously, there may be several legitimate as well as illegitimate reasons we often find ourselves on the wrong side of our retirement financial dreams. However, in my humble opinion, most investors never take the time to answer some very simple but crucial questions that will ensure they won’t end up in an unintended predicament:

Will your retirement portfolio be able to provide the needed resources to support your lifestyle? How, exactly, do you know whether your investments are headed in the right direction or not?

Keep in mind that the folks referenced in the HSBC study had substandard portfolios all along but didn’t realize it until it was far too late. Maybe they were too busy? Maybe they had unskilled financial advisors. Are you really paying attention and getting the best results you possibly could for your hard-earned money?

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Want real, fact-based information that will give you better results than relying on your intuition? Contact us so that we can help you to objectively evaluate your current situation and make a plan that will yield the results you want. Visit LaserFG.com or call 877.656.9111 right now to book your complimentary session.

Intuition Is Really Bad for Your Investment Portfolio

Intuition Is Really Bad for Your Investment Portfolio

Obviously, I cannot claim that intuition is flat out bad. I am aware that our creator gave it to us for a reason. But based on what I know and have actually witnessed in my years of being in the trenches with folks as it relates to investing and retirement planning, I can unequivocally tell you, without any restrictions whatsoever, that it’s not the best idea to use intuition for building your investment portfolio.

In fact, I have seen it destroy folks’ livelihoods, firsthand. Just this past week, I met with someone who, in her own words is “really disappointed and scared” about the outcome of her investments over the past 20 years. For two decades, she’s been diligently investing, expecting that she would be fine for retirement. All of a sudden, she finds herself at the crossroads of retirement, now realizing that her efforts have yielded terrible results.

My question was how she and her advisor had made decisions surrounding which funds to invest in - the stocks and bonds mixes, and why. Her answer: “I just picked those funds that I thought would do well. My advisor showed me the options, and I chose the ones I thought where good funds, based on the performance history. Then, from time to time, we switch funds when they don’t live up to my expectations.”

That should sound pretty normal and familiar. Isn’t this exactly how most people are investing today? But here is the problem. It is a surefire way to go broke in retirement. And that’s simply because making decisions this way is based purely on instinctive feeling, rather than facts and conscious reasoning. Contrary to what you may think or even believe to be true, investing shouldn’t be a guessing game because 9.5 out of 10 times, you are bound to guess incorrectly.

If you don’t know exactly why your portfolio is arranged the way it is, your expected return overtime, and the level of volatility associated with it, I am afraid that you are on a very slippery slope.

Would you expect a good medical doctor, mechanic, plumber, or any other professional, for that matter, to deliver good results purely based on intuition (as opposed to meticulous, conscious reasoning based on provable science)? Of course not.

So do you have a justifiable, realistic basis that explains the composition of your investment portfolio? Or has it all been left up to intuition – whether that of your financial advisor or yourself?

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Want real, fact-based information that will give you better results than relying on your intuition? Contact us so that we can help you to objectively evaluate your current situation and make a plan that will yield the results you want. Visit LaserFG.com or call 877.656.9111 right now to book your complimentary session.