Pages

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Checking your portfolio to minimize losses and gain control

We have been helping our clients and friends with the market woes. Luckily our approach since we started our company has been very moderate and away from Variable products. Recently we have been converting variable policies and contracts into a more safe approach into index products that protect the principal and provide piece of mind. They work better than CDs and Money market accounts since these are relative to the market fluctuations. An Index product helps you protect the principal and during bull markets (positive rate of returns) they gain from a pre-designated index fund such the DJIA, Nasdaq, S&P 500 EuroXX and international funds that spreads the gains. Two years ago we started with this liquidity, leverage and solid rate of return model and have averaged 5 to 7% ROI in the last year. Not impressive in the earlier years but conservative enough to beat all others. Our concerns of late are Variable Life insurance products which have lost over 50% of their principal funds. These brings a liquidity problem and potential lapses in policies. We recommend to check your current portfolios to verify the amounts and protect them from lapsing. Additionally, we have been suggesting trimming down on all expenses and weathering the impact of the current recession. We have always implemented the 12 month emergency fund accounts for times like these. These funds help deal with liquidity and current lay offs and provide ample resources to maintain holdings and future earnings. We have seen plenty of "what not to do's" recently. Like tapping into your 401K and retirement accounts; these actions negates all the earnings and hurt individual retirement plans for the future. We recommend to update your financial plan to address these issues. We often ask the question of having a financial plan; we get a lot of: I do not have any money to save or invest. the point of that it exactly why the financial plan is so important; because with one one can take control and allocated resources to be able to have savings and deal with the current market. Our model concentrates on the fact that everyone is not a planner and they are busy dealing with work, family and do not have time to really take control of their finances. We have built a solid platform that integrates all the financial needs from a simple auto policy to investments and wealth accumulation options. Our services range from all individual needs to business needs with all the products and services possible. We call this "Financial Synergy". Would you rather make one trip to deal with; taxes, investments, insurance, wills, payroll etc etc. This will allow one to concentrate on the important issue: Piece of mind. Visit our website to get quotes and schedule a complementary consultation to take control on your finances. We will be posting more issues relating to the current economic recession and how to deal with it.

Hannibal Chinchilla
Principal
Barca Financial Group

No comments: