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Know More, Make More

knowledge-powerA new academic study finds that more financially knowledgeable people earn a higher return on their 401(k) retirement savings.

Dr Robert Clark (NC State University), Dr. Annamaria Lusardi (George Washington University), and Dr.  Olivia Mitchell (University of Pennsylvania) analyzed a unique dataset that combined 401(k) performance data for 20,000 employees plus financial literacy data for the same workers.

Investors deemed to be more financially knowledgeable than peers enjoyed an estimated 1.3% higher annual return in their 401(k)s or other defined contribution plans than those with less knowledge.

According to the study’s authors:
“We show that more financially knowledgeable employees are also significantly more likely to hold stocks in their 401(k) plan portfolios. They can also anticipate significantly higher expected excess returns, which over a 30-year working career could build a retirement fund 25% larger than that of their less-knowledgeable peers.”

Financially savvy people tend to save more and are more likely to invest those savings in the stock market. But past studies haven’t clearly demonstrated that these people necessarily make better investment decisions. The authors look at patterns in 401(k) retirement accounts and find that more sophisticated investors do indeed get better returns on their savings.

Source: “Financial Knowledge and 401(k) Investment Performance”

Elite Colleges Don’t Buy Happiness or Extra Money for Graduates

graduates

Attention high school graduates that were rejected by their first-choice college

A new Gallup survey of 30,000 college graduates of all ages in all 50 states has found that graduation from an elite college provides no discernible advantage over Podunk U.

“It matters very little where you go; it’s how you do it” that counts, said Brandon Busteed, executive director of Gallup Education.

Gallup’s data demonstrate that people that feel the happiest and most engaged are the most productive.  Those successful people got to that point by developing meaningful connections with professors or mentors, and made significant investments in long-term academic projects and extracurricular activities.

This new study’s results are well aligned with the existing body of academic research.  For example, economist Stacy Dale published  an insightful paper in 2004 that found that students who were accepted to elite schools, but attended less selective schools, went on to earn just as much money as their elite counterparts.

“Individual traits matter more than where you went,” Ms. Dale said. “It’s a lot more important what you learn later in life than where you got your undergraduate degree.”

Source: WSJ

Class of 2019: Financial Advice That will CHANGE YOUR LIFE

PDS-CommencementThe following is a brief excerpt from the commencement address by Dr. Chris Mullis (Financial Planner & Founding Partner at NorthStar Capital Advisors) to the graduating class of Providence Day School on May 31, 2013. The full text of Dr. Mullis’ speech, that includes career advice, financial guidance, and a few pearls of wisdom, can be found here.

At our financial advisory firm, we developed complex computer algorithms and use them to manage our clients’ investment portfolios. But the basic steps you need to take to manage your own money well are deceptively simple. First, live within your means and avoid being caught up in rapid lifestyle inflation. You will not live like your parents when you first start out. Second, save and invest your money wisely. Let me elaborate on this point.

Wealth accumulation depends on three factors: how much you save, the rate at which your money grows, and how long you save. That last factor, time, is very, very important. There’s an urban legend that Albert Einstein once said that compounding interest is the most powerful force in the Universe. That quote is likely misattributed but the message is spot on. If you save $5,000 a year for 40 years and earn 8% annually, you will eventually have $1.3M. But if you delay starting for merely 5 years, your results after 35 years will be only $860k. That 5-year delay preserved $25k of short-term capital but ultimately cost you >$400k in the long run. Time is the most powerful lever in the machinery of investing. Nothing else comes close to it.

So what do you need to do? Start saving and investing right out of high school regardless of how hard you think it hurts or how unpleasant the tradeoffs. Even if you set aside only 5% of your paycheck starting out, do it to get into the habit of saving. Delaying getting serious about investing until my 30s was a significant financial mistake on my part. No one ever sat me down and explained how important it is to start investing early. Now that we’ve had this little talk, you’ll never be able to say that no one told you.

Code Red! 8 Ways to Permanently Wipe Out Your Retirement Savings

code-redDana Anspach at MarketWatch wrote about 8 financially devastating mistakes (aka “Code Reds”) that must be avoided:

1. Believe in a stock
The company you work for is doing well. You understand the potential of the business. You should own a lot of company stock. After all, it shows your level of commitment, right? 
WRONG! CODE RED!
You can lock in lifestyle by taking risk off the table. If trusted advisers are telling you to reduce risk, listen. You can’t take your “belief” in your company stock to the bank. Owning a lot of company stock doesn’t demonstrate a commitment to your company; it demonstrates a lack of commitment to your own personal financial planning.

2. Get reeled into real estate
Rental real estate is a good way to build wealth with someone else’s money, isn’t it? I mean, that’s what the infomercials say.
WRONG! CODE RED!
Investing in real estate is a profession in and of itself. With real estate prices on the rise again, don’t get reeled in with the lure of easy passive income. It isn’t as easy as it looks.

3. Follow a Tip
An opportunity to double your money is an investment opportunity worth pursuing. It could change your life, right?
WRONG! CODE RED!
Tips are great for your waiter or waitress. But where you family’s future is concerned, avoid the tips, and stick with a disciplined and diversified approach.

4. Change lanes — every year
Smart investors watch the market and frequently move money into the latest high performing investment, right?
WRONG! CODE RED!
You’ve probably noticed if you constantly changes lanes on a backed up highway, always trying to inch ahead, you usually end up farther behind. Driving this way isn’t effective; investing this way isn’t effective either. Pick a disciplined strategy and stick to it. Jumping from investment to investment is only going to slow you down.

5. Play the currency cards
Experts can deliver higher returns, right? Find someone who knows how to trade, and you’ll be set.
WRONG! CODE RED!
If experts could generate such high returns, why would they need your business? Don’t play the currency cards, the expert cards, or fall for any kind of outlandish promises. I’ve yet to see one of these programs work the way it was marketed.

6. Follow your ego
Better investments are available to those with more money, right? If you get the opportunity to participate in something exclusive, it is likely to deliver better returns.
WRONG! CODE RED!
If someone appeals to your ego, walk away. When it comes to investing, the only thing I’ve seen egos do is help someone lose money.

7. Follow their ego
You can trust prestigious people in your community. That’s why you should do business with them, right?
WRONG! CODE RED!
Checks and balances are good in government and in investing. One way to make sure checks and balances are in place is to work with an investment adviser that uses a third party custodian. The third party custodian sends account statements directly to you. The investment adviser can make changes in your account, but the transactions are reported to you directly by the custodian, who isn’t and should not be affiliated with the investment adviser.

8. Leverage up
Borrowing at low interest rates and investing in high growth assets is an excellent way to accumulate wealth, isn’t it?
WRONG! CODE RED!
Think twice before borrowing to invest. It causes ruin more often than it causes riches.

Visit MarketWatch to read Anspach’s full article.

Asset Management vs. Financial Planning

At a 100,000-ft level, we do two things in our financial advisory practice: Asset Management* and Financial Planning.  Although these two functions are distinct, they are very much interrelated.  Both are essential components for our client families’ long-term success, but it’s important to understand and appreciate the differences:
(* Asset Management also falls under the monikers of  “investment management” or “portfolio management”)

Asset management is about asset allocation, expected returns, risk tolerance and time horizons.
Financial planning is about making wise choices about the use of debt, setting up college savings plans, tax efficiency, estate planning and ensuring your insurance needs are taken care of.

Asset management is about managing investments.
Financial planning is about managing investors.

Asset management is about portfolio construction and risk management.
Financial planning is about comprehensive planning and emotional management.

Asset management is about measuring portfolio performance by comparing results to predetermined index benchmarks.
Financial planning is about measuring your performance against your true benchmark — your goals.

Asset management is about allowing your money to work for you to help you reach your financial goals.
Financial planning is about helping people define their goals, dreams, desires and fears.

Asset management is about creating a process that guides your actions in a wide variety of market environments.
Financial planning is about implementing a plan and making corrections along the way as life or market and economic forces intervene.

Asset management is about creating a portfolio that can survive severe market disruptions.
Financial planning is about creating a financial plan that can survive severe life disruptions.

Asset management deals with financial capital.
Financial planning deals with human capital.

Asset management is about growing and/or preserving your wealth.
Financial planning is about understanding why money is important to you personally.

Asset management is about where to invest a lump sum.
Financial planning is about how and when to invest a lump sum.

Asset management is about asset allocation.
Financial planning is about asset location.

Asset management is about creating policies to guide your actions in the face of economic and market uncertainty.
Financial planning is about helping people make better decisions with their money in the face of uncertainty that is impossible to reduce.

Asset management helps you understand how much you need to earn on your investments to meet your future spending needs.
Financial planning helps you understand how much you need to save meet your future spending needs.

Asset management helps you figure out where to take your money from when you need to spend it.
Financial planning helps you figure out where to spend your money in a way that makes you happy.

Asset management helps you grow your savings to meet future consumption needs.
Financial planning helps you plan and budget for future consumption needs.

Asset management is about creating a long-term process to guide your actions in the markets.
Financial planning is about creating systems that allow you to spend less time worrying about your money.

Asset management is about reducing the anxiety that comes from the volatile nature of the markets.
Financial planning is about reducing the anxiety that comes from making important decisions with your money.

Asset management involves growing your wealth so some day you can become wealthy.
Financial planning involves figuring out what a wealthy life means to you.

To get the most benefit from asset management, you really need comprehensive, well thought-out financial planning.

25 Important Documents You’ll Need Before You Die

death-dossierDesign your “Death Dossier” soon or you could be setting up your heirs for frustration and financial pain:

25 Important Documents You’ll Need Before You Die
The Essentials
• Will
• Letter of instruction
• Trust documents
Proof of Ownership
• Housing, land and cemetery deeds
• Escrow mortgage accounts
• Proof of loans made and debts owed
• Vehicle titles
• Stock certificates, savings bonds and brokerage accounts
• Partnership and corporate operating agreements
• Tax returns
Bank Accounts
• List of bank accounts
• List of all user names and passwords
• List of safe-deposit boxes		 Health-Care Confidential
• Personal and family medical history
• Durable health-care power of attorney
• Authorization to release health-care information
• Living will
• Do-not-resuscitate order
Life Insurance and Retirement
• Life-insurance policies
• Individual retirement accounts
• 401(k) accounts
• Pension documents
• Annuity contracts
Marriage and Divorce
• Marriage license
• Divorce papers

Learn more in this article

Class of 2018: Financial Advice That will CHANGE YOUR LIFE

PDS-CommencementThe following is a brief excerpt from the commencement address by Dr. Chris Mullis to the graduating class of Providence Day School on May 31, 2013. The full text of Dr. Mullis’ speech, that includes career advice, financial guidance, and a few pearls of wisdom, can be found here.

At my investment advisory firm, we developed complex computer algorithms and use them to manage our clients’ investment portfolios. But the basic steps you need to take to manage your own money well are deceptively simple. First, live within your means and avoid being caught up in rapid lifestyle inflation. You will not live like your parents when you first start out. Second, save and invest your money wisely. Let me elaborate on this point.

Wealth accumulation depends on three factors: how much you save, the rate at which your money grows, and how long you save. That last factor, time, is very, very important. There’s an urban legend that Albert Einstein once said that compounding interest is the most powerful force in the Universe. That quote is likely misattributed but the message is spot on. If you save $5,000 a year for 40 years and earn 8% annually, you will eventually have $1.3M. But if you delay starting for merely 5 years, your results after 35 years will be only $860k. That 5-year delay preserved $25k of short-term capital but ultimately cost you >$400k in the long run. Time is the most powerful lever in the machinery of investing. Nothing else comes close to it.

So what do you need to do? Start saving and investing right out of high school regardless of how hard you think it hurts or how unpleasant the tradeoffs. Even if you set aside only 5% of your paycheck starting out, do it to get into the habit of saving. Delaying getting serious about investing until my 30s was a significant financial mistake on my part. No one ever sat me down and explained how important it is to start investing early. Now that we’ve had this little talk, you’ll never be able to say that no one told you.

Managing Your Portfolio: One Father’s Advice

Writing letter to a friend.Arthur Zeikel, president of Merrill Lynch Asset Management, sent his daughter a letter teaching her some investing basics.

Enjoy!

———

Personal portfolio management is not a competitive sport. It is, instead, an important individualized effort to achieve some predetermined financial goal by balancing one’s risk-tolerance level with the desire to enhance capital wealth. Good investment management practices are complex and time consuming, requiring discipline, patience, and consistency of application. Too many investors fail to follow some simple, time-tested tenets that improve the odds of achieving success and, at the same time, reduce the anxiety naturally associated with an uncertain undertaking.

I hope the following advice will help:

A fool and his money are soon parted. Investment capital becomes a perishable commodity if not handled properly. Be serious. Pay attention to your financial affairs. Take an active, intensive interest. If you don’t, why should anyone else?

There is no free lunch. Risk and return are interrelated. Set reasonable objectives using history as a guide. All returns relate to inflation. Better to be safe than sorry. Never up, never in. Most investors underestimate the stress of a high-risk portfolio on the way down.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Diversify. Asset allocation determines the rate of return. Stocks beat bonds over time.

Never overreach for yield. Remember, leverage works both ways. More money has been lost searching for yield than at the point of a gun (Ray DeVoe).

Spend interest, never principal, If at all possible, take out less than comes in. Then a portfolio grows in value and lasts forever. The other way around, it can be diminished quite rapidly.

You cannot eat relative performance. Measure results on a total return, portfolio basis against your own objectives, not someone else’s.

Don’t be afraid to take a loss. Mistakes are part of the game. The cost price of a security is a matter of historical insignificance, of interest only to the IRS. Averaging down, which is different from dollar cost averaging, means the first decision was a mistake. It is a technique used to avoid admitting a mistake or to recover a loss against the odds. When in doubt, get out. The first loss is not only the best, but is also usually the smallest.

Watch out for fads. Hula hoops and bowling alleys (among others) didn’t last. There are no permanent shortages (or oversupplies). Every trend creates its own countervailing force. Expect the unexpected.

Act. Make decisions. No amount of information can remove all uncertainty. Have confidence in your moves. Better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.

Take the long view. Don’t panic under short-term transitory developments. Stick to your plan. Prevent emotion from overtaking reason. Market timing generally doesn’t work. Recognize the rhythm of events.

Remember the value of common sense. No system works all of the time. History is a guide, not a template.

This is all you really need to know.

When this article was originally published in 1995, Arthur Zeikel was president of Merrill Lynch Asset Management in New Jersey.

Source: Forbes

Salary You Need to Afford the Average Home in Your State

The map above from howmuch shows how much salary you need to afford the average home in your state.  This a quick snapshot of housing affordability across the United States.

Top five places where you need the highest salaries to afford the average house:

  1. Hawaii: $153,520 for a house worth $610,000
  2. Washington, DC: $138,440 for a house worth $549,000
  3. California: $120,120 for a house worth $499,900
  4. Massachusetts: $101,320 for a house worth $419,900
  5. Colorado: $100,200 for a house worth $415,000

Top five places where you need the lowest salaries to afford the average house:

  1. West Virginia: $38,320 for a house worth $149,500
  2. Ohio: $38,400 for a house worth $149,900
  3. Michigan: $40,800 for a house worth $160,000
  4. Arkansas: $41,040 for a house worth $161,000
  5. Missouri: $42,200 for a house worth $165,900

Source: howmuch

Location, location, location!

As we head into the spring real estate season, many of our clients are busily buying and selling properties.  As the old adage goes, location, location, location.  The fascinating visualization above underscores the importance of geography in median housing prices and land valuations.

Blue dots represent the value of an acre of land, and the red circles indicate the median value of a home. The bigger the blue dot and the larger the red circle, the more expensive it is to become a property owner. Small circles and dots likewise indicate a very low cost of purchasing property.

A couple of things stand out:

  • An acre of land is much more valuable in the Northeast compared to any other part of the country
  • Median home prices generally high in the Northeast as well
  • There’s a noticeable decline of both land and housing prices in southern and midwestern states

Source: howmuch

Nothing on this website constitutes either the provision of investment advice or solicitation to provide investment advice. Investment advice can only be provided through a formal investment advisory relationship. Copyright © 2019 NorthStar Capital Advisors - Charlotte, NC. All Rights Reserved.