BUY, HOLD OR SELL?

By: Daniel Johnedis, CFA, CIC and Fuerte Men Financial Correspondent

Two of the toughest decisions that any individual investor faces are when to get into the market and start buying and when to get out and sell your positions?   There are generally unique circumstances that determine buy and sell decisions (e.g. It is time to buy a house and you need to sell assets to have cash to make this purchase or down payment or renovations). Another example would be someone who just sold a house or received an inheritance and wants to invest this capital to make it grow faster than if they were to hold it in a very low yielding money market fund or bank savings account.

STILL UP IN THE AIR ABOUT

YOUR FINANCIAL FUTURE?

By: Daniel Johnedis, CFA, CIC and Fuerte Men Financial Correspondent

If you read the article I wrote a few months ago for Fuerte Men entitled “Going Global”, you may recall that I mentioned this was a great time to be setting up a financial plan and investing in the global financial markets. All of the turbulence in the equity markets in 2011 and the declining values of stocks in the previous years may have kept most of you from investing in the financial markets.  If you had gotten on board that flight for financial freedom when I recommended it back in October, you would have earned more than 10% in your diversified portfolio of global securities.   That is quite a substantial gain over a 3-month period!

FIVE TIPS TO GET NEW CUSTOMERS

It Is Easier Than You Think

By:  Sidney Alvarez, Fuerte Men Business 

The economy is still sluggishly moving forward, but you want to jump start your business and reach new clients. How do you get started? Welcome to the world of sales; no matter what your business, sales will always be involved.

This couldn’t be further from the truth, however, you must also look at a few other characteristics: product, rapport with customers, quality of services, expertise, and so forth. All of these contribute to getting new customers.

Here are a few tips to help give you the edge over the competition and bring new folks into your practice (no particular order):

GOING GLOBAL:  Don’t Miss Your Flight!

By: Daniel Johnedis, Fuerte Men Financial Correspondent

With all of the scary headlines about the financial and political disasters overseas, many people are staying home and keeping cash under their mattresses. Many others are invested in what they perceive as safe U.S. treasury investments and CDs. This may be a good idea when we are entering or in the midst of a global economic meltdown. Wake up before the flight takes off because the savings from your low yielding ‘safe’ investments may not even be enough to buy a plane ticket for your next trip!

Opportunity cost is one of the most overlooked risks. This may be the biggest risk you have now as your 1 year CDs are yielding less than .5%, your money market funds are yielding less than .1% and the money in your bank savings account is earning about .05%.   There is a major opportunity cost to missing the upside in an improving global economic environment.

Gay Retirement Planning 101

Making It Work For You

By: Daniel Johnedis, Fuerte Men Financial Correspondent

I bet you think you already have a great retirement plan in place or maybe you haven’t even thought it about it yet.   The truth is that most individuals do little or nothing to plan for retirement and wait too late to start setting aside money to achieve their goals of an early and comfortable retirement. I will discuss some of the things you can do if you have not started saving and some ways to enhance your retirement plan that is currently in effect.

Depending on your current age, there is a chance that there will be little or nothing coming from your contributions to Social Security as the current system is being challenged by our aging population.   If you are not relying on winning the lottery or receiving a big inheritance from your favorite uncle, I would highly recommend a proactive approach to your retirement plan.