Investment Vehicles | Prosperity Trek Guide by Prosperity Concierge

When You Buy an Annuity What to Look For In the Insurance Company

When you buy an annuity you enter into a long-term relationship with the insurance company that offers the product. For this reason, your primary consideration when comparing annuity products is the financial strength of the insurance company behind the product.
An annuity contract can last for decades, and you need a financial partner that will be around

Continue reading When You Buy an Annuity What to Look For In the Insurance Company

Get an Annuity to Meet Your Goal and Financial Objective

When you shop for an annuity look for one that is right for your goal and objective.
High Level of Guaranteed Income Now
If your objective is to generate the highest possible amount of guaranteed monthly income starting now, you will want to look at a single-premium immediate fixed annuity. Single premium means that you are paying for

Continue reading Get an Annuity to Meet Your Goal and Financial Objective

Investing Inertia - Overcoming Fear to Reach Your Financial Goals

Investors’ attitudes today are characterized by ambiguity. Investors don’t know even what the possible outcomes may be, let alone the probability that they might occur. Without a familiar context for financial decision making, it’s easy to become emotionally paralyzed.
The difference between uncertainty and ambiguity may sound like little more than semantics. But neuroimaging studies have found that

Continue reading Investing Inertia – Overcoming Fear to Reach Your Financial Goals

How You Can Increase Your Yield on Cash and Short-Term Investments

There are ways to increase your yield on cash and short-term investments – without taking on excessive risk.
It can be done without committing either to long-term bonds or to the volatility that can come from dropping down too far in credit quality.
First determine how much of your short-term investments are for immediate needs and has to be easily

Continue reading How You Can Increase Your Yield on Cash and Short-Term Investments

Market Volatility: Your Behavior Decides if it is Good or Bad

Volatility isn’t bad in itself. It’s your reaction to it that matters most.
Psychological experiments have shown that the stress induced by watching the market heave up and down may lead you to try to lock in your gains by selling your winners, often before you should. The market has always been unpredictable.
There are useful, productive

Continue reading Market Volatility: Your Behavior Decides if it is Good or Bad

The Retirement Account Rollover: How to Preserve Your Wealth

An important retirement concern for many of us that affects our wealth protection and accumulation is on how best to make a rollover decision when changing jobs.
On a recent 401(k) Benchmarking Survey conducted by Deloitte, 22 percent of employers surveyed revealed that their employees find rollovers to be the most confusing part of their retirement plan.
“Rollover” is

Continue reading The Retirement Account Rollover: How to Preserve Your Wealth

Investing When You Believe Inflation Is A Risk To Your Portfolio

When you believe inflation is a risk for your portfolio you can move money into some of these investments to protect your wealth.
Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities
Rising inflation is especially harmful to investors in fixed-income securities, as the purchasing power of a bond’s principal amount, usually $1,000, is lower at maturity when interest rates are higher than

Continue reading Investing When You Believe Inflation Is A Risk To Your Portfolio

Retirement Accounts - The Benefits of Regular Investing

These days, many Americans are assuming responsibility for their financial security during retirement. Fortunately, there are different types of retirement accounts — including IRAs and employer-sponsored 401(k) plans — that provide benefits not offered by regular, fully taxable accounts.
Each can help you focus on the future and begin laying the groundwork for a financially secure

Continue reading Retirement Accounts – The Benefits of Regular Investing

Tax Strategies for Saving and Investing

There are tax-advantaged ways to save and invest. Here’s how:
1. Create an investment strategy
Instead of basing a tax strategy on something you can’t control, such as future tax policy, consider building an investing plan around your current tax rate and your general expectations of future marginal tax rates (combined federal, state, and local income rates), particularly

Continue reading Tax Strategies for Saving and Investing

Q&A: The Roth IRA Conversion - How to Convert to a Roth and Why

What are the differences between a traditional IRA and a Roth IRA?

With a traditional IRA, your contributions are generally tax-deductible, and your account can grow tax-deferred over time. Later, when you take withdrawals in retirement, withdrawals will be taxed at your ordinary income tax rate. And once you reach age 70½, you’ll be required to

Continue reading Q&A: The Roth IRA Conversion – How to Convert to a Roth and Why

Index Funds, Tax-Managed Funds and ETFs - Low-Cost, Diversified

If you are maxing out your 401(k), IRA and any tax-deferred or tax-exempt retirement account, or you want to diversify across taxable and non-taxable holdings, you are in luck.
There are investments that can give you a diversified global portfolio at very low cost. If you are diversified, you don’t have to worry about your wealth

Continue reading Index Funds, Tax-Managed Funds and ETFs – Low-Cost, Diversified

Investment Risks to Avoid

Some investments have risks to avoid.
Leveraged Funds
Funds that use futures and options try to amplify their returns. They try to return two to three times the daily returns of their target index. The funds mirror daily returns, not long-term performance.
Natural Resource Investments
Fake oil deals show up when the price of gas or oil begins to soar.
Gold and Gold

Continue reading Investment Risks to Avoid

Balancing Retirement and College Saving

When you’re putting money away for college and retirement simultaneously and both goals are near, you might be tempted to split the savings between a 529 account and an IRA or 401(k).
If you near retirement the retirement account should get the bulk of your saving dollars. Especially when you consider that money withdrawn from

Continue reading Balancing Retirement and College Saving

Timing a Roth Conversion

The many variations of retirement accounts makes building wealth a bit complicated. Adding to the complexity is the issue that many retirees and retiree-want-to-be’s face: when is it advantageous to convert a non-Roth IRA to a Roth IRA?
The best time to do the conversion is when the market has tanked because when you roll

Continue reading Timing a Roth Conversion

Immediate Fixed Annuities

When households have investment assets and are planning to augment their cash flow with an income stream from those investments annuities offer one option.
To use an annuity typically means to make a one-time payment to an insurer for the promise of receiving regular payments at a defined rate of interest.
Since an annuity is an insurance

Continue reading Immediate Fixed Annuities

Use an ETF to Build Net Worth

To build net worth you want most of your investing dollars going to work for you. To do that you want to reduce investment expenses. There are several options that allow you to invest at low cost. One of these is the use of an ETF.
An ETF is an exchange-traded fund.

Continue reading Use an ETF to Build Net Worth

Stocks in Retirement Accounts

Whether to keep stocks in retirement accounts is an important question. The answer partly depends on whether the stocks are directly owned or whether you are investing in stocks through a mutual fund.
If the stocks are individually owned then certainly ownership outside of a retirement account makes sense. With direct ownership you are

Continue reading Stocks in Retirement Accounts

Retirement Accounts – Roth for your IRA or 401(k) – Which Type is Best?

There are so many retirement accounts to choose from. Which one is the best one?
When comparing how taxes are deducted the Roth version is the opposite of the traditional non-Roth account. With a Roth version of the IRA, 401(k) or 403(b) you get your tax break when you withdraw the funds.

Continue reading Retirement Accounts – Roth for your IRA or 401(k) – Which Type is Best?

Roth Conversion Tax Calculation

To convert a regular IRA or 401(k) to a Roth IRA (assuming 28% tax bracket) use these steps to look ahead at your tax bill:
Step 1: Enter the total value of all of your IRA and 401(k) funds (non-Roth) (Example: $150,000)
Step 2: Enter the total of your nondeductible contributions for the year (Example:

Continue reading Roth Conversion Tax Calculation

Index Funds or Managed Portfolio

One of the biggest investment decisions we all make is whether to invest passively or actively, regardless of whether we invest directly or hire somone to invest for us.
Mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs) give us choices, including whether our money is actively managed.
One of the best, low-cost moves a passive investor can make

Continue reading Index Funds or Managed Portfolio

Prosperity Trek Guide by Prosperity Concierge

Recent Articles