Personal Rate of Return Useless?

[WinniWoman]

Your CPA that does your taxes is not going to be a great FA. Those are CFAs.

Having these two and a estate attorney for wills, POA, health care proxy etc are critical.

Each will need a data set and background info. Each can help you pull that totether but overall you need to be in the middle defining goals and setting out the intentions for your estate.

What I was meaning is I would love to find a CFA that is ALSO a CPA. Don't need him/her to do my taxes. I do them myself. But I like the idea of someone having both credentials.

 

[Passepartout]

What I was meaning is I would love to find a CFA that is ALSO a CPA. Don't need him/her to do my taxes. I do them myself. But I like the idea of someone having both credentials.

You can LIKE the idea of a planner having both credentials, but do you want to PAY for the privilege. A CFA can be a high school dropout, who chooses to take a CFA course in most states. It is likely that the majority of Master's level CPA's will also be CFA's who will charge accordingly. But really, unless your financial situation is extremely complex- like foreign inheritance, oil leases, possible heirs from former marriages with special needs, and on and on, a well trained CFA who pledges to have a 'Feduciary' relationship with you and not a profit motive in selling investment products to you should be enough.

From what you have publicly posted about your finances and family dynamics, a couple of hours (paid by the each) with a CFA should get you written suggestions about your investments which you can choose to act on or not.

Jim

 

[tompalm]

Every financial planner I ever talked too will help you diversify your funds by putting a portion of your assets in bonds, growth, value, international..... type of funds. You will be long the market and during the next downturn, or recession, your account will not go down as much if you are taking less risk. However, it will not go up as much when taking less risk. Buy a target fund if that is all you want or talk to the folks where you have your funds, I think you said TR Price. They all have computer programs to help you do that. You don't need to pay a Financial Planner to do that.

But I agree with the above that a couple hours with a CFA might help you determine if you need to worry about where to invest and if it helps you feel better about everything, go see someone for a couple hours. But don't turn over all your funds to them and let them manage it. You should talk to a CPA first to determine if you need to worry about taxes.

 

[WinniWoman]

Thanks, Tompalm and Jim. I agree! I am thinking the same way.

 

[winger]

Plug for FutureAdvisor

I got this free/fee-for-premium feature service from an acquaintance - if anyone likes to take a look, let me know what you think.

 

[Talent312]

I have tried FutureAdvisor, and find it interesting, but not very useful...
1. Allocation models do not fit real-world envrionment. Ex: REITS with rates rising?
2. Mediocre fund picks which place too much emphasis on fees over actual returns.

I use several watch-lists to track the performance of about 100 funds in various
categories. Rarely do their funds' metrics to hold up well against those I selected.

IMHO, if you put some time and effort into it, you can do a better job of fund picking.
.

 

[geekette]

...IMHO, if you put some time and effort into it, you can do a better job of fund picking.
.

Or cut out the middleman and invest directly into the companies held by the funds you like. At this point I think there are less public companies than there are funds.

 

[SMHarman]

Or cut out the middleman and invest directly into the companies held by the funds you like. At this point I think there are less public companies than there are funds.

Yes because the funds reduce the investment cost at any level under a multi million dollar investment.

Want to by the biggest 10 fashion stocks in the world because you are robust on lux goods. Your shopping on us, Uk, Italian, French and German exchanges at least. What are your costs to buy in vs one US listed lux goods ETF?

 

[Talent312]

Choosing stocks can be done effectively, but IMHO you need a lot of time for research & monitoring.
The time + patience for which which I don't have. Arbitragers have so much more leverage anyway.

I prefer ETF's which is a low-cost way to avoid risks associated with owning a few stocks.
But for bonds when interest rates are rising, individual issues will at least return face value at maturity.
I also think active management is appropriate in special areas: small-cap, emerging markets & bonds.
.
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