I’ve heard it said that if you eat slower, you will eat less. Growing up with ten brothers and sisters, I know that to be true. In fact, I suppose I can probably attribute the slender build in my youth to the struggle at the kitchen table for the biggest slice. I had dinner at…
I knew from a fairly young age that finance was going to be my chosen career path, not because I was driven by money, but because I understood money. Having a photographic memory for data and growing up in the home of a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, I moved quickly through the educational ranks and received…
I’m the Chief Operating Officer at Wyson Financial. I am responsible for the operations of the company. Before joining Wyson Financial in 2013, I ran a banking operation of Citi Bank and was an Office Manager for a summer sales company. My experience and leadership have been focused on developing structure and organization while providing…
FOUR PILLARS OF INVESTING
Cash: Every family needs cash on hand for immediate and emergency needs. The amount in this pillar is dependent on each individual situation. The main purpose of this pillar is to have cash readily available when you need it, with a secondary focus on rate of return.
Foundation: As every home needs a solid foundation to weather the storms, every portfolio needs a good foundation as well. Foundation investments are longer-term holdings designed to build over the course of your lifetime, with less concern about short-term market movements. These often make up the bulk of your retirement savings.
Opportunity: As economies and markets move and react to world conditions, opportunities to take advantage of these movements are constantly presenting themselves. This pillar is where we take advantage of those shorter-term opportunities. This pillar is not limited to any specific area as most investments have the potential at one time or another to fall into this group. Opportunity investments may include any reasonable holding so long as there is a short-term potential for higher-than-normal profits.
Alternatives: I feel it is important to own investments that are not correlated to the traditional stock and bond markets. Alternatives are investments that move in their own cycles and therefore can have a stabilizing effect on the rest of the portfolio. Alternatives may be designed also to help protect against specific risks, such as inflation or currency movements. Alternatives are individualized to each investor’s situation.
Investing in alternative investments may not be suitable for all investors and involves special risks such as risk associated with leveraging the investment, potential adverse market forces, regulatory changes, and potential illiquidity. There is no assurance that the investment objective will be attained.
GET IN FRONT OF THE HERD
If you want to catch an elephant, don’t sneak up behind it and shoot it in the rear with an arrow. Get out in front of it and dig a big hole. Like amateur elephant hunters, too often investors take the bow-and-arrow approach. They are constantly running behind the herd, shooting at them fruitlessly with little arrows. A wise investor carefully and patiently studies the movements of the herd, then gets out in front of it and digs a few nice holes.