Author : Matthew Tuttle
How will you be remembered after you are gone? Perhaps you don't care or perhaps you haven't thought about it. Maybe, if you are like me, you have thought about it quite a bit. Two events in my life really got me thinking about this issue. The first was at my grandmother's funeral. She lived in a small town in the south and I remember looking back on the funeral procession and seeing that it stretched as far as the eye could see. That small town must have been shut down that day. Then came my father's funeral. I remember a stream of people coming up to me, many whom I didn't know, telling me stories of how wonderful a person my father was. I wondered how many people would come to my funeral and what they would tell my children about me. What will your legacy be? Here are some questions to ask yourself.How is your estate plan?Do you have a will? If not, you have chosen to leave your assets to your heirs in the most confusing and time consuming manner possible. If so, that's a great first step but it may not be enough. A well thought out estate plan leaves your belongings to your heirs in the most efficient manner while taking into account their different needs and wants. Your will might cover large items but what about the small stuff lying around your house? If have heard horror stories about siblings who no longer talk because of fights over trivial items not included in the will. Have you left your home equally to your two children knowing full well that one will want to live in while the other will want to sell it? People do things like these all the time, yet it's a recipe for disaster.Are you properly insured?Will you leave behind enough money for your family to maintain their lifestyle or a stack of bills? A simple rule of thumb measure to figure out if you have proper insurance is cut in half and drop the zero. For example, if you have $500,000 in life insurance you divide that number in half ($250,000) and drop the zero ($25,000). This is how much annual income your heirs could expect to receive from the life insurance proceeds. This example ignores a number of variables but it is a good starting point in figuring out if you have proper insurance.Are you making smart choices with your money?Are the choices you are making with your money today in line with the kind of legacy you want to leave? Are you teaching your children to be financially literate? If you want to be charitable what are you doing to achieve that goal? If you want to help with your grandchildren's education how are you doing it? You can use your money to accumulate as many possessions as you want but after you are gone it is all meaningless. I will never forget going through my father's effects after the funeral and seeing tie collection that he was so proud of. Unfortunately, they were too outrageous for me to wear and my brother doesn't wear ties.What are you doing to make the world a more beautiful place?I recently read a book to my daughter entitled "Miss Rumphius". It is the story of a young girl who tells her grandfather that when she grows up she wants to travel to far away places and live by the sea. He informs her that there is a third thing she must do, something to make the world more beautiful. When she grows old she has traveled and lives by the sea but something is missing. She realizes that she has done nothing to make the world a more beautiful place. So she starts spreading flower seeds all over her town, and in short order flowers were blooming everywhere. What are you doing to make the world more beautiful?Matthew Tuttle is the author of "Financial Secrets of my Wealthy Grandparents". For more information, or to sign up for his free newsletter, please visit http://www.matthewtuttle.com.
Category : Finance:Estate-Plan-Trusts
วันเสาร์ที่ 6 ธันวาคม พ.ศ. 2551
วันอาทิตย์ที่ 30 พฤศจิกายน พ.ศ. 2551
Sideways Market
Author : Al Thomas
Last year you could have used a dart, thrown it at a stock page in the newspaper and bought that stock. By the end of the year you probably would have had a nice profit. This year you can retrieve your dart, throw it again, and there is about a 90% chance that any stock you hit will be down from its previous highs. What's going on?Even with my more than 30 years experience of trading markets there is one simple answer - more sellers than buyers. I'm not being facetious. In all those years I can't recall a market that went up this quickly, but I have seen them come down even faster. Remember the 20% loss of the DOW in 1987? In one day! Many of you don't. This break is a good lesson for those who failed to put trailing stop loss orders on all their stocks.Your broker certainly did not recommend a stop. His company discourages that sort of thing. Why I will never be able to logically understand, as it would benefit both the customer and the brokerage house. How? If you were sold out at a much higher price than that dog you have in your account now you would have more capital to invest when the market turns up again. You are a happy camper and the broker makes more commission because you have more money in your account to invest.Check out the stocks or mutual funds you now have in your portfolio. See where you would have been stopped out if you had had approximately a 10% trailing stop loss. I can almost guarantee you would have more money in your account today than you do right now.Let's try to use some common sense to figure out why this market is going nowhere at this time. Think of all the people who are sitting on stocks that are selling for less than they paid for them. A lot, huh?
I can bet many of them are saying to themselves, "I'm going to sell XYZ as soon as it goes up to where I can get out even". This effectively puts a cap on any strong rally.What are the pros doing here? Each time the market falls near its former lows they are in there buying from those people who have become discouraged and no longer want to wait for the market to head up. This is support.We have a group willing to sell their shares when there is a rally and another group willing to purchase shares when the market starts down which gives us the reasons for this sideways market.It is very difficult to make money in this type of situation so you must be very choosy with your purchases. Fundamentals don't apply well here. Technicians can make money provided they will sell with small profits. For those interested in the long term they must be patient enough to wait for the next leg up.Al Thomas' book, "If It Doesn't Go Up, Don't Buy
It!" has helped thousands of people make money
and keep their profits with his simple 2-step
method. Read the first chapter at
http://www.mutualfundmagic.com
and discover why he's the man that Wall Street
does not want you to know.Copyright 2005
Category : Leukemia
Last year you could have used a dart, thrown it at a stock page in the newspaper and bought that stock. By the end of the year you probably would have had a nice profit. This year you can retrieve your dart, throw it again, and there is about a 90% chance that any stock you hit will be down from its previous highs. What's going on?Even with my more than 30 years experience of trading markets there is one simple answer - more sellers than buyers. I'm not being facetious. In all those years I can't recall a market that went up this quickly, but I have seen them come down even faster. Remember the 20% loss of the DOW in 1987? In one day! Many of you don't. This break is a good lesson for those who failed to put trailing stop loss orders on all their stocks.Your broker certainly did not recommend a stop. His company discourages that sort of thing. Why I will never be able to logically understand, as it would benefit both the customer and the brokerage house. How? If you were sold out at a much higher price than that dog you have in your account now you would have more capital to invest when the market turns up again. You are a happy camper and the broker makes more commission because you have more money in your account to invest.Check out the stocks or mutual funds you now have in your portfolio. See where you would have been stopped out if you had had approximately a 10% trailing stop loss. I can almost guarantee you would have more money in your account today than you do right now.Let's try to use some common sense to figure out why this market is going nowhere at this time. Think of all the people who are sitting on stocks that are selling for less than they paid for them. A lot, huh?
I can bet many of them are saying to themselves, "I'm going to sell XYZ as soon as it goes up to where I can get out even". This effectively puts a cap on any strong rally.What are the pros doing here? Each time the market falls near its former lows they are in there buying from those people who have become discouraged and no longer want to wait for the market to head up. This is support.We have a group willing to sell their shares when there is a rally and another group willing to purchase shares when the market starts down which gives us the reasons for this sideways market.It is very difficult to make money in this type of situation so you must be very choosy with your purchases. Fundamentals don't apply well here. Technicians can make money provided they will sell with small profits. For those interested in the long term they must be patient enough to wait for the next leg up.Al Thomas' book, "If It Doesn't Go Up, Don't Buy
It!" has helped thousands of people make money
and keep their profits with his simple 2-step
method. Read the first chapter at
http://www.mutualfundmagic.com
and discover why he's the man that Wall Street
does not want you to know.Copyright 2005
Category : Leukemia
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