Williams Asset Management

In addition to the reasons previously listed for purchasing long-term disability insurance, consider increasing your coverage if your growing household relies primarily on a single-earner.

It’s important to remember that a company’s first-year performance in the stock market is not always indicative of what its long-term results will produce, as we learned from the trials and tribulations of companies such as Facebook and GoPro.

At this point in time, consumers seem to be willing to look past the absence of revenue and earnings, the skyrocketing unemployment level, and the burgeoning amount of corporate and sovereign debt to better days ahead.

Investing doesn’t have to be one or the other. For the right investor, it’s ok to branch out and have some fun with your portfolio.

As our clients are well-aware, we take a long-term view with our investment philosophy, focusing on crafting diversified portfolios and believing in the power of compounding returns to build and preserve wealth.

To answer this question, you first need to understand a few basic facts: venture capital would typically represent a very small percent of an individual’s portfolio, requires a high-risk tolerance and substantial investment amount.

When life changes, money changes, too. Marriage, divorce, the loss of a spouse, the birth of a child, receiving a large inheritance or windfall, or even unprecedented career successes are all life events that can significantly complicate your money matters.

While there are other options available, such as self-insuring, it’s important not to underestimate the substantial cost of long-term care and consider that using your savings for this purpose may mean that you or your spouse will have fewer funds for retirement.

A long-term care insurance (LTCI) policy is specifically designed to pay for services like in-home care, respite care, assisted living, nursing home fees, and even home modifications.

Long-term care (LTC) involves a variety of services you may rely on to meet your health or personal care needs.

With the prospect of substantial returns compared to an investment in a publicly-traded company, investors should be willing to accept this high risk, illiquid and long-term investment.

The retirement planning process should start with your “life portfolio” goals. From there you can prioritize what actions need to be taken if there are any corresponding gaps in your financial planning.

Having both your “financial portfolio” and “life portfolio” may allow you to achieve true happiness in retirement and focus on what really matters to you.

Central banks invest in gold to hedge against currency risks—largely for the same reason individual investors might. Because it is a physical commodity, there is no credit risk in gold, and because gold holds value that is not attached to the dollar, it can work as a hedge against a weakening national currency.

Commodities investing is a bit different from other types of investing in that the investment is in a physical good. That being the case, there are multiple avenues for investing in gold as a commodity to add to your portfolio that don’t always necessarily mean acquiring the physical product itself.

It takes exponentially higher returns realized over time for an account to recover from loss. A portfolio that takes a 4% hit one year, won’t recover with a 4%+ recovery the next.

Sequence risk has always been one of the challenges in determining a reasonable spending or drawdown rate in retirement.

Hiring a financial advisor isn’t right for everyone. Some individuals aren’t inclined to the collaboration or delegation it requires to have a successful advisor-client relationship.