Tools every
investor should have to monitor their financial well being
Financial
education
As much as we try to educate our clients about investment
management and financial planning, there is always more to learn. In years past, we'd recommend
subscribing to Money Magazine for those clients who wanted to keep
abreast of evolving issues in personal finance. However, all that content is readily
available online and has the advantage of being searchable if
you're interested in a particular topic.
We also like the Money
Guides" section of the New York Times website for
even more detail.
Lastly, whenever a client asks us about whether they
should refinance their mortgage, we go straight to BankRate
to find out what rates are available in their area.
Bookmark all three sites in your web browser and refer to
them for quick information. Often
the background detail will enable you to ask better questions of your
investment advisor, your accountant your trust & estate attorney, and
your mortgage banker.
Financial
Self Assessment
Socrates' guiding rule was, "Know Thyself." Truer words were never spoken when it
comes to investment management. We
often meet with prospective clients who want "maximum
gains." Our follow-on
question is, "how would you feel if a maximum gain strategy entailed
the risk of a 100% loss of principal." We usually learn that maximum gains are
not the goal, but sleeping at night is.
There are hundreds of Financial Self Assessment guides on
the Internet. We have picked two
that we think have immediate utility for our clients.
The first is a series of "thought"
questions. We have converted the
original page to a Word
document, so a client can readily fill out the
questionnaire and e-mail it to us for further conversation.
The second is an interactive
quiz that illustrates the risk/reward relationship
pretty handily.
Fidelity
"Full View" Application
A number of our clients are already using a software
application within www.Fidelity.com
called "Full View." This
application is a "web scraping" tool that allows a client to
view not only their Fidelity accounts, but also brokerage accounts at
other firms, their 401Ks whether at Fidelity or elsewhere, bank checking
accounts, credit card balances and mortgage information all on a single
"dashboard."
A full
description is available here.
Enrollment can be done online, and as long as you know
your login ID and passwords for all the financial services you use, you
can get a complete picture of your situation in about a half hour. There is no fee for use of this
application.
Feel free to call
us at 800-99-HERON (800 994-3766) or e-mail us if you have any questions
about these resources.
Yours sincerely,
David Edwards
President
Heron Financial Group, LLC, is an SEC registered investment advisor
providing fully managed investment and wealth management services to
individuals, families, trusts, defined benefit plans and
corporations.