Meeting a new financial advisor for the first time can feel a bit daunting. What should you say? How much should you share? And perhaps most importantly, what should you expect from the meeting?
There are generally two ways to approach your relationship with a new advisor.
Approach One: Hand over all your financial details and hope the advisor reassures you that everything's fine, with only a few small tweaks needed.
Recent college or university graduates with their first career job have an understandable itch to spend money after years of living on Kraft Dinner.
Yet this is the ideal time in life to start developing the correct habits that will lead to a comfortable future lifestyle. But we often hear reasons why now is not the right time to get started.
As Canadian and US stock market indexes hit new highs this year, many investors began expressing anxiety about a possible ‘correction’. Financial media personalities have also been speculating about the timing of correction from these recent market highs – following a strong run over the past year.
It is not uncommon for an individual or organization, such as a charity or community tennis club, to consult a financial advisor regarding investment returns that can be generated on some spare cash that is not needed in the immediate future.
As with many retirement savers, it took two major stock market events (Global Financial Crisis, Global Pandemic) to convince Adam and Sonya that trying to 'time the market' or pick specific sectors was a costly exercise in futility. But, with the value of their RRSPs nearly halved in the 2009 Financial Crisis, they also recognized that they could not afford to avoid equities if they were going to have any chance of meeting their retirement goals.
In the last article Sue had a capital shortfall of $400,000 in order to support her desired retirement lifestyle. This amount will vary for each individual and will be larger or smaller depending upon your income, age and ability to save money as a percentage of your earned income.
Many of us reflect on our yearly financial goals as the calendar turns to a New Year. But bringing goals to fruition can't happen without a clear plan of action and determined effort. This is especially true as we continue to live with lingering effects of above-average inflation and the highest interest rates in over 20 years. To help maximize your investment success and end this year on a financially positive note, we have put together some key ideas:
There is almost always chatter in the media about the next possible correction or recession. The most recent buzz is about a possible US recession where Canada would likely follow suit. The chatter also includes opinions about a "soft" versus a "hard" landing, etc. The primary challenge for individuals trying to build wealth is that this background noise (chatter) has nothing to do with…you!
Monica was alarmed to hear from her mother's financial advisor expressing concern over some unusual financial requests. She called her mom, who seemed fine, but Monica couldn't get the conversation with the financial advisor out of her head. She travelled to see her mom in person and was dismayed to discover numerous unpaid bills and an uncompleted tax return. Her mother had always been very meticulous about money, so something was off. Monica's concerns turned out to be well-founded. Within a few months, her mother was diagnosed with dementia.
Working towards financial independence includes assumptions about how the world operates and how we navigate within that environment. These assumptions work best when the world remains the same allowing you to make reasonable future projections.
Challenges come when changes occur in the operating environment which may require reassessing wealth building strategies. The disruptions from early 2020 (Covid, supply-chains, etc.) seem to have ushered in some significant changes in our world.
