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Do You Need A Financial Planner

Do you need a Financial Planner?

ü      Do you have the discipline, the expertise, and the time to analyze your own financial and life goals and to stick to such a plan?

ü      Do you understand insurance and risk management, from home to casualty to auto to disability to life insurance?

ü      Do you understand the ever-changing tax laws and how you can best defer taxes or avoid them or plan for them in advance?

ü      Do you know how to roll over your 401K plan when you leave your company and how long you have to do that without losing the tax benefits?

ü      Do you understand how to measure the tax efficiency of a mutual fund or index fund?

ü      Do you understand what turnover means and how it affects your taxes from the fund you invest in?

ü      Do you know what the current capital gains tax laws are or the advantages of capital gains over ordinary income?

ü      Do you know how long you have to hold an investment to get capital gains advantages?  Is it the same for your house as for your stocks?

ü      What is the alternative minimum tax?  Are you subject to it even if your income is not that high?

ü      Do you know what a variable annuity is or what is so variable about it?  And how a variable annuity could allow you to never pay taxes on your investment income?  Or why it is different from a fixed annuity and what is so fixed about it?

ü      What is variable universal life and what does life insurance have to do with deferring taxes or avoiding estate taxes?

ü      Do you understand how to evaluate whether a variable annuity has greater advantages over buying stocks or funds and holding them for long-term capital gains?

ü      Are municipal bonds the best way to avoid taxes just because the interest is tax-exempt?  Is that interest tax free for federal taxes or for state and local as well?

ü      Do you understand how to scientifically combine different investments to optimize your returns versus your risks?

ü      Do you understand the difference between long-term and short-term bonds or high-yield and low-yield bonds?

ü      Do you understand the difference between growth and value stocks?

ü      Do you know how large a large cap stock is or how small a small cap stock is?

ü      Do you understand when small companies and large companies do better and why?

ü      Does the Russell 2000 or the Russell 3000 best measure the performance of small cap stocks?

ü      Does the S&P 500 or the Dow best measure the performance of large cap stocks?

ü      Do you know how to evaluate the 9,000-plus mutual funds that are out there?

ü      Do you know what a unit investment trust it?

ü      Do you understand the specific differences between mutual funds, unit investment trusts, and index funds?

ü      Do you know that many investors who claim they will not sell their stocks or funds in a 10% or 20% correction actually panic and do so?

ü      Do you understand how to evaluate the risk or volatility of stocks and mutual funds?

ü      Do you know what the Sharpe ratio is and how it measures risk and volatility?

ü      Have you ever heard of other risk measures, such as M-squared or beta or standard deviation?

ü      When you invest in a large cap value fund or a small cap growth fund, do you understand a concept called style consistency, which measures whether the fund manager is investing in the type of stocks he or she claims to be consistently over time?

ü      Would you want to invest in a fund that has a great track record but new manager?

ü      Is a five-star fund always the best one to invest in?

ü      Should you put more weight on the 1-year, 3-year, 5-year, or 10-year track record of a fund?

ü      Have you measured the fund you are considering versus other funds in its category for return and risk, or are you just measuring it versus the S&P 500?

ü      Do you understand the demographic, technology and political factors driving most of the booming and busting countries around the world?

ü      Do you understand why stock valuations rise when interest rates or inflation rates fall?

ü      Do lower inflation and interest rates affect large company or small company stocks more?

ü      Do you understand puts and calls or what the put-to-call ratio means?

ü      Is it better to buy a stock when it is down or when it is soaring?

ü      What does volume of trading have to do with the prospects for stocks?

ü      Would you rather buy a stock that is breaking above old highs on lower volume of trading or higher volume of trading?

ü      How do you tell if a stock that is falling is good value for buying or a dog? 

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