When Did We Decide?

September 29th, 2006

By: Scott DeMonte

When did we decide no advice was better than getting advice from experts? When it comes to investing your money, getting sound financial advice is key and so important. Somewhere along the way many people decided no advice is the way to go, this is astounding and scary. Full Story Here.


Do You Have an Income Plan?

By: Scott DeMonte

September 18th, 2006

When people start planning for retirement, they generally invest their money into stocks, bonds, mutual funds and money market accounts. What people pay the most attention to is the accumulation phase of retirement, and what they least plan for is the income planning stage of their post retirement years. Full Story Here.

Income Planning…Continued

The Best Way to Generate Income After Retirement

By: Scott DeMonte
October 2, 2006

As we all know, pensions are going by the wayside. They are either under funded or being closed by the sponsors. With the end of the traditional pension, the question arises: “How do you plan for post retirement income?”

Social Security will provide you with some income, but chances are it will not be enough to fund your retirement years. You will have to rely upon your personal savings to generate the income you want. What are your post retirement income options? Full Story Here

What You Need to Know About Captive Agents

September 25th 2006

By: Scott DeMonte

I recently received an email from an investor inquiring about working with their captive agent. They asked:

Q: I work with an advisor at (deleted to protect the innocent) company. I have been happy with their service and my account’s performance, but I have a question. All of my mutual funds and annuities are from the same company (the same company as the advisor worked for, name deleted) why is that?

A: Well, when you work with a captive agent they are usually limited to what they can offer. Although, not always a bad thing, it is not exactly unbiased advice that you are receiving. What you need to know about captive agents, people who can only sell their firm’s investments, is that they cannot sell whatever they like. They can only sell investments offered by their company.

The issue we have with captive agents is that they are trained to believe that their products are superior to all others, this may be true, but it is unlikely. Even if they can sell other firms’ products, often times their own company’s product pays them a higher commission or they have other incentives to sell their proprietary products. Full Story Here

Retirement Income Planning, continued

By: Scott DeMonte
October 2, 2006

As we all know, pensions are going by the wayside. They are either under funded or being closed by the sponsors. With the end of the traditional pension, the question arises: “How do you plan for post retirement income?”

Social Security will provide you with some income, but chances are it will not be enough to fund your retirement years. You will have to rely upon your personal savings to generate the income you want. What are your post retirement income options?Full story Here

Traditional Fixed Annuities Have New Competition

10/24/2006

By: Scott DeMonte

Have you ever bought or sold a fixed annuity that had a great introduction interest rate for the first year only to see the interest rate go down and never go back up again? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is yes. Now, not all fixed annuities do have that track record and there are certainly some annuities that lock in interest rates for a designated period of time. Full Story Here