From the category archives:

Stocks & Mutual Funds

Ask the Right Questions To Get the Right Answers

December 11, 2011

Podcast: Download (22.9MB)

This week Doug Andrew discussed the following:

Upcoming Free Webinar

Attend our free 90-minute webinar live over the Internet this coming Tuesday, December 13th at 11:00 a.m. pacific (12:00 p.m. mountain, 1:00 p.m. central, 2:00 p.m. eastern), and again at 6:30 p.m. pacific (7:30 mountain, 8:30 central, 9:30 eastern). The topic is “True Asset and Wealth Optimization.” You’ll learn how to choose the right investments for liquidity, safety, rate of return and tax benefits.

Click Here to Register Now

All attendees receive a bonus hardcover copy of Last Chance Millionaire, Doug Andrew’s New York Times best-selling book.

Retirement Questions for Business Owners

Many business owners are feeling frustrated because of the economic uncertainty of the past 10 years. The so-called “Lost Decade” has cost many folks nearly 40% of their retirement nest egg due to market volatility.

Following 9/11, the economy declined for 3 consecutive years before it started to regain traction. By 2007 those with money in the market had begun to break even with where they were prior to September 2001.

Of course, in 2008 the market took another 40% drop and it was back to square one for those investors.

Business owners who were recently taught the Missed Fortune strategies were intrigued to see proof that investors who followed these indexing strategies throughout the Lost Decade actually doubled their money. That’s quite a contrast to those who have been struggling to regain lost ground for the past 10 years.

When asked to elaborate on their frustrations, these business owners pointed first to the market volatility as a primary source of irritation. They also pointed to concerns about taxes going up as well as the likely effects of inflation.

Next the business owners were asked how long this trend had been going on. Some answered that they’d been staying the course in their IRAs or 401(k)s for 15-20 years at the behest of their CPA, attorney or other financial advisor.

One of the classic definitions of insanity is to do the same thing over and over while expecting a different result.

The third question asked of these business owners was what they had tried in order to remedy their situation. Often they would reply that they tried to protect themselves and their money from further losses by putting it into a bank account that yielded 1% interest and where there was zero upside potential when the market grew.

Often they would dive right back into tax-deferred accounts again thinking that they’d see a return of the days of average 12% returns like their financial advisors spoke of in glowing terms.

But it hasn’t happened. According to DALBAR, most people actually averaged 3.83% because they tended to buy & sell at the wrong times. By contrast, the Missed Fortune indexing strategies have averaged around 8.2% percent rate of return in a safer, more conservative environment and it’s tax-free.

The next question for the business owners was “how much is this costing you?”

If the $100,000 you started out with could have grown to $500,000 but instead is sitting at just $200,000 thanks to taxes, inflation or market volatility, the missed opportunity has cost you $300,000.

The final question was, “if you go another year and you don’t change what you’re currently doing, how are you going to feel?” This question cuts right to the heart of the matter because there are proven ways to grow your money safely regardless of what the economy is doing.

Missed Fortune strategies have a proven track record of eliminating the concerns and making this happen.

10 Lies About Money

Doug Andrews is currently collaborating with Tony Robbins on a book about the 10 greatest lies about money and finance. Their goal is to help people take ownership of their financial future.

Among the top ten lies about money that people believe:

Government knows best and will take care of us in the future. The truth is that we always take better care of anything in which we take ownership.
Putting money in tax-deferred investments using pre-tax dollars is the best way to save for retirement. This is far from the best way to save for the future.
You’ll be in a lower tax bracket in the future. A lot of people who’ve built up a nest egg with tax-deferred funds have found out the hard way that Uncle Same takes a big bite the moment they start to withdraw that money.
You can average a rate of return of 12% by putting your money in the market. Actually, the average return for the past 12 years has only been 3.83%.
Real estate investments & equity pass the Liquidity, Safety & Rate of Return (LASER) test. This is not accomplished by sending extra principal payments to the mortgage company like so many advisors will tell you.
You should buy term insurance and invest the difference. Instead you can accumulate money tax-free and far outpace the buy-term-invest-the-difference approach.
You can structure a life insurance contract to perform as a superior investment vehicle. Unless the insurance contract is 100% structured correctly, you will fail in this strategy.
You should buy and hold. That myth simply hasn’t worked.
Your IRA and 401(k) are your money. Actually, 33-50% of that money belongs to the government in the form of taxes.
Leverage or debt is bad. By learning to become your own banker you can turn this lie on its head just as the thrivers of the world have done for generations.

Learn more about overcoming the pains of market volatility, higher taxes and inflation by meeting with a Missed Fortune advisor.

Bonus Missed Fortune E-Book: Baby Boomer Blunders The average Baby Boomer has less than $50,000 accumulated for retirement (which means many have less than that), primarily due to bad habits and having money invested in the wrong places where economic downturns can diminish their nest egg. Download this e-book now at www.babyboomerblunders.com.

{ 0 comments }

Moving Your Money to Safety

October 30, 2011

Podcast: Download (22.9MB)

This week Doug Andrew discussed the following:

Upcoming Free Webinar

Attend our free 90-minute webinar live over the Internet this coming Tuesday, November 1st at 11:00 a.m. pacific (12:00 p.m. mountain, 1:00 p.m. central, 2:00 p.m. eastern), and again at 6:30 p.m. pacific (7:30 mountain, 8:30 central, 9:30 eastern). The topic is “True Asset and Wealth Optimization.” You’ll learn how to choose the right investments for liquidity, safety, rate of return and tax benefits.

Click Here to Register Now

All attendees receive a bonus hardcover copy of Last Chance Millionaire, Doug Andrew’s New York Times best-selling book.

Losing Trust in Our Financial Systems

A recent article by Catherine New in Daily Finance shows that Americans are losing trust in the country’s financial system.

The results of the magazine’s quarterly survey indicate that trust in our financial institutions is slipping.

The article points out:

“The latest figures from the quarterly Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index showed that only 23% of those surveyed said they trust the country’s financial systems, down from 25% in June. The index measures trust in four areas: banks, the stock market, mutual funds and large corporations.

“The findings in this issue reflect what’s been reported in the news and demonstrate the fragility of trust many Americans still have in the institutions where they invest their money,” said Luigi Zingales, a finance professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and co-author of the Index.

Trust in banks has experienced an even steeper decline, falling from 39% in June to 33% in October. Notably, people were much more inclined to trust local banks and credit unions: More than half of those surveyed said they still had faith in those institutions.

The survey also revealed that nearly 60% of respondents were either angry or very angry about the current economic situation — the highest level of anger measured since the earliest months of the financial crisis.”

These findings back up an earlier survey by CNN that revealed that nearly 90% of Americans say the economy stinks.

3 years after the financial crisis pushed this country into a deep recession, financial conditions are as poor as they’ve ever been.

Ask yourself: would you want to stay on board a sinking vessel that has been foundering for the past decade? Those Americans who’ve had their retirement money in the stock market have made little, if any, gains in the past 10 years.

If you had $100,000 socked away in an IRA or 401(k) you saw it take a 30 or 40% hit following 9/11. Then after growing back to its high-water mark it took another huge 39-40% decline in 2008. Even today few people have managed to break even thanks to the market volatility of the “lost decade.”

The situation becomes all the more uncertain when considering that Congress and the president are still spending with abandon. In just three years the national debt has soared from $9 trillion to nearly $15 trillion.

If you remain on board a sinking vessel by keeping your money in IRAs and 401(k)s thinking that future taxes will be lower, you’re not seeing the writing on the wall. Taxes are only one of the threats to your retirement money; the other two components of the upcoming triple whammy are inflation and market volatility.

You need a strategy that moves your money to safety.

The Triple Threat of the Next 10 Years

Taxes will be going up. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that tax rates could go as high as 62.5% for couples making over $200,000 or single filers making over $100,000. Even if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire at the end of 2012, it will be the largest tax increase in history.

Inflation is the second big danger. Over the past two decades inflation has averaged around 2-3%, but those days are over. The days ahead will likely see inflation inching up to 5% on the low end and perhaps as high as 7-10% on the high end.

It’s essential that you protect yourself from the effects of inflation as it robs every dollar you have of purchasing power.

The third big danger is continued market uncertainty. This type of economic uncertainty is what prevents employers from hiring and contributes to the growing unemployment rate.

These three dangers combine to form an economic triple whammy that requires different action than simply following the crowd.

You must understand the tax and inflation power curve.

Let’s say you socked away $10,000 a year for 30 consecutive years and earned 7.2% interest. You’d have a nest egg of about $1 million. Now if you were to withdraw only 7.2%, in order to maintain your principal, you’d be taking out $72,000 a year.

But if that money is in an IRA or 401(k), you’ll be paying a nice chunk of any money you withdraw to the IRS. Your tax situation will be complicated because most people, by this time, will have no dependents to claim, their home will be paid off, and they’ll no longer be contributing to their retirement fund.

This means their tax liabilities will be higher rather than lower. It’s a safe bet that of that $72,000 you’re withdrawing each year, about 1/3 of it–$24,000 will be gobbled up by state and federal income taxes.

Now consider what inflation will do to the remaining $48,000 a year you’re expecting to live on. Even at just 5% inflation, the purchasing power of your dollars will be cut in half twice over that 30-year period. This means that you’ll only be able to purchase with $4,000 per month what $1,000 per month today would buy.

Now you start to see why the effect of the tax and inflation power curve is so important to understand and even more important to counter.

You need strategies that reposition your serious money for the future with a strategic rollout before the end of 2012. This will allow your money to accumulate tax free from that day forward as it’s grandfathered under the Internal Revenue code.

The strategies you choose must allow you to access your money tax-free and transfer it tax-free when you die. They must tie your money to those things that inflate so when inflation comes, your rate of return is outpacing the rate of inflation.

Your strategies must allow you to index your money to the markets without putting it at risk to the volatility of the market. It should grow when the economy grows and protect your principal when the economy declines.

These are the Missed Fortune strategies that have been working for decades for those willing to break away from the crowd and move their money to safety

Learn more by meeting with a Missed Fortune advisor.

Bonus Missed Fortune E-Book: Baby Boomer Blunders The average Baby Boomer has less than $50,000 accumulated for retirement (which means many have less than that), primarily due to bad habits and having money invested in the wrong places where economic downturns can diminish their nest egg. Download this e-book now at www.babyboomerblunders.com.

{ 0 comments }

The More Government Stimulates the Less the Economy Responds

September 11, 2011

Podcast: Download (22.9MB)

This week Doug Andrew discussed the following:

Upcoming Free Webinar

Attend our free 90-minute webinar live over the Internet this coming Tuesday, September 13th at 11:00 a.m. pacific (12:00 p.m. mountain, 1:00 p.m. central, 2:00 p.m. eastern), and again at 6:30 p.m. pacific (7:30 mountain, 8:30 central, 9:30 eastern). The topic is “True Asset and Wealth Optimization.” You’ll learn how to choose the right investments for liquidity, safety, rate of return and tax benefits.

Click Here to Register Now

All attendees receive a bonus hardcover copy of Last Chance Millionaire, Doug Andrew’s New York Times best-selling book.

The Spending That Never Pays Off

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal titled “The Great Recession and Government Failure” stated that this latest recession might well have been a deep one, even with good government policies.

The article goes on to say that government failure added greatly to its length and severity including its continuation to the present.

One of the more notable components of that government failure:

Nearly a trillion dollars of federal spending that was supposed to stimulate the economy enough to reduce the unemployment rates to under 8%. Of course, if you’ve been listening to the job stats that were recently released over the Labor Day weekend, you know that the actual unemployment rate is now closer to 16%.

Despite the predictions of leading government economists, who were backed up by essentially no evidence, the spending has yet to produce the intended jobs.

What the stimulus has produced is a sizable expansion of the federal deficit and debt. So what does that mean to you and me?

5 years ago the national debt was about $9.2 trillion. With about 100 million workers in this country, that means each taxpayer would have had to write out a check for $92,000 to pay of their share of the national debt. Today we are in far worse shape.

Because of the increase stimulus spending, now every taxpayer would have to pay something in the neighborhood of $146,000 each in order to pay off the national debt. A good way to illustrate this is is to compare the growth of the national debt to a person leaving the East Coast heading for the West Coast.

It took roughly 100 years to get from Washington D.C. to Dallas, Texas. But we’ve covered that much ground in just the last 8 years. That’s how rapidly our national debt is growing.

For the past 3 years we’ve had a continuing artificial stimulus that’s akin to a person pounding down energy drinks to sustain their demanding lifestyle. There’s a short-term caffeine rush followed by a corresponding crash that’s much harsher than it should have been. In the end, we’re no better off.

Another article entitled “Economy Adds Zero Jobs in August as Recession Fears Grow” points out that the U.S. economy’s failure to add any jobs in August is stoking renewed fears of a double dip recession.

These articles illustrate the necessity of creating predictability and certainty to take ownership of your financial future. The prospect of ever-increasing taxes and greater regulation is instead creating exactly the opposite.

Dr. Edwards Deming is the quality management engineer who revolutionized Japan’s manufacturing standard to the quality they put out today. He said that management of anything in your life comes down to predictability. People are not feeling comfortable because they have no predictability about the future.

So how do you create predictability in your life?

Incorporating proven strategies

At least twice in the last decade, people who put their money into IRAs and 401(k)s, where they were told to, ended up losing money based upon what the stock market did. Their nest eggs have yet to fully recover and if they have more money today than they did 10 years ago, it’s because they added more money to it.

On the other hand, those who followed the Missed Fortune strategy of indexing have safely doubled their money at a time when most Americans are just barely getting back to where they once were.

The way indexing works is that you participate indirectly when the economy is doing well, but you don’t lose when the stock market goes down. When the economy does well, you get to participate up to a certain cap.

That cap is around 15% currently, but when there’s high inflation, that cap can go as high as 20-21%. Your rate of return will generally outpace inflation by at least 5%. During down years your money may not grow much, if at all, but you will not lose a penny.

It’s a very simple concept, but those who don’t know about it don’t know what they’re missing.

In the so-called last decade where most people were losing a third or more of the value in their 401(k)s and IRAs, those who were indexing were enjoying a rate of return of 9.6% or more.

Plus your money grows tax free thanks to certain provisions in the IRS code. It’s a much better way than postponing your taxes in a tax-deferred vehicle like and IRA or 401(k) where you’ll absolutely have to pay taxes when you start accessing your money. If you’re banking on tax rates being lower by the time you retire, you’re likely in for a nasty surprise.

These Missed Fortune Strategies are the key to creating predictability and certainty in an increasingly unpredictable and uncertain world.

Learn more by meeting with a Missed Fortune advisor.

Bonus Missed Fortune E-Book: Baby Boomer Blunders The average Baby Boomer has less than $50,000 accumulated for retirement (which means many have less than that), primarily due to bad habits and having money invested in the wrong places where economic downturns can diminish their nest egg. Download this e-book now at www.babyboomerblunders.com.

{ 0 comments }

The Economic Realities That Can No Longer Be Ignored

July 10, 2011

Podcast: Download (23.0MB)

This week Doug Andrew discussed the following:

Upcoming Free Webinar

Attend our free 90-minute webinar live over the Internet this coming Tuesday, July 12th at 11:00 a.m. pacific (12:00 p.m. mountain, 1:00 p.m. central, 2:00 p.m. eastern), and again at 6:30 p.m. pacific (7:30 mountain, 8:30 central, 9:30 eastern). The topic is “True Asset and Wealth Optimization.” You’ll learn how to choose the right investments for liquidity, safety, rate of return and tax benefits.

Click Here to Register Now

All attendees receive a bonus hardcover copy of Last Chance Millionaire, Doug Andrew’s New York Times best-selling book.

Americans Aren’t Feeling So Optimistic These Days

U.S. voters continue to be largely pessimistic about the country’s future. We need to be able to think about a bigger and brighter future, but we’re not feeling that way. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of likely voters shows that 46% of those surveyed think America’s best days are in the past.

37% say they believe that America’s best days are still ahead. And 16% say they’re not sure.

Optimism about the nation’s future has generally been in the mid to high 3os for most of the Obama presidency. With a number of economic indicators hitting new lows in recent days, it’s not surprising that voters continue to favor a government with less services and lower taxes.

65% say they’d favor a smaller government over one with more services and higher taxes.

David Walker, the former comptroller for the General Accountability Office, recently resigned because he was not allowed to tell the American public the truth about the escalating national debt. In 2007 it was at $9 trillion and he said we had nearly $63 trillion in unfunded liabilities including Medicare and Social Security that we don’t have money in our coffers to pay.

In October 2009 our government was operating totally in the red for nearly a year and three months until January of 2011 when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced that the government was finally solvent enough to cover what it was paying out in benefits again.

Both parties say we need to cut at least $4 trillion over the next 10 years, but David Walker says that more will be required to keep the government solvent.

He says we can’t do that without both spending cuts and tax increases. Walker says first we’ll need to make several billion dollars in cuts immediately in discretionary spending. Next he says we’ll need to cut $100 billion in the 2012-2013 budget.

The third and final part of his debt remedy deal is to institute budget controls with pay-as-you-go requirements, annual spending caps and specific debt to GDP targets. If the targets aren’t hit by late 2013, buzzers would sound, lights would flash and the deal would trigger automatic draconian spending cuts and higher taxes.

Every tax payer in this country should be paying very close attention. An economic reality check is getting closer.

What To Expect In the Next Decade

Dave Ramsey recently pointed out that Americans now have more in their 401(k) than they did in October of 2007 when everything fell apart. There are actually two reasons for that.

Number one, people have added money to their 401(k) over the past 4 years. Secondly, if they didn’t add money and their 401(k) was linked to the S&P 500 Index, for instance, over the past 10 years you’ve barely made 2.99% by the end of first quarter 2011.

Contrast that with people who’ve followed the Missed Fortune strategies during this last ten years experienced predictable, safe tax-free growth of 7.23% growth and have doubled their money from where they started.

Market uncertainty will be a part of the next decade as well. Wall Street has lost more than 45% of the typical investor’s money twice in the last decade. The typical equity mutual fund investor has only averaged a 3.83% return for the past 8 years.

There is a much better way to put your serious money to work.

With a Missed Fortune strategy like Indexing, you don’t lose a dime when the market goes down and you start earning again the second the market goes up. With a Missed Fortune strategy like linking your returns to those things that inflate, inflation helps you rather than hurts you.

And with the Missed Fortune strategy of accumulating your money in a tax free vehicle, you avoid the higher taxes that are surely on the way.

Learn how to put these strategies to work for you. Talk to a Missed Fortune advisor today.

Bonus Missed Fortune E-Book: Baby Boomer Blunders The average Baby Boomer has less than $50,000 accumulated for retirement (which means many have less than that), primarily due to bad habits and having money invested in the wrong places where economic downturns can diminish their nest egg. Download this e-book now at www.babyboomerblunders.com.

{ 0 comments }

Taking the Risk Out of Growing Your Money

July 3, 2011

Podcast: Download (23.0MB)

This week Doug Andrew discussed the following:

Upcoming Free Webinar

Attend our free 90-minute webinar live over the Internet this coming Tuesday, July 5th at 11:00 a.m. pacific (12:00 p.m. mountain, 1:00 p.m. central, 2:00 p.m. eastern), and again at 6:30 p.m. pacific (7:30 mountain, 8:30 central, 9:30 eastern). The topic is “True Asset and Wealth Optimization.” You’ll learn how to choose the right investments for liquidity, safety, rate of return and tax benefits.

Click Here to Register Now

All attendees receive a bonus hardcover copy of Last Chance Millionaire, Doug Andrew’s New York Times best-selling book.

The Risks That Haven’t Paid Off

Wall Street has already lost more than 45% of investors money twice in just the last decade. After 9/11 we had three significant down years. And in 2008 people saw their IRAs and 401(k)s decrease an average of 31%.

As of First Quarter 2011, many people are just now starting to see a break-even point or a return to the ground they lost just a few years ago. The people who followed the Missed Fortune strategies have received at least a 7.2% rate of return through those years, even if they were simply protecting themselves during the down years by not losing money.

They were positioned to participate indirectly in the up times and have doubled their money–tax free–in the past decade.

People who used “re-balancing” were able to earn even greater rates of return in the neighborhood of 9.62% during the past 10 years. By contrast, the typical equity mutual fund investor who had his money in the market for the past 2o years earned a paltry average of 3.83%.

They’ve only outpaced inflation by a mere 1% per year. When inflation goes up to 5% or 7.2% the cost of living doubles every 10 years. Rowing against the current of inflation while keeping your money in the market is going to lead to a rude awakening for many investors.

The only reward that stock market investors have received for taking all that risk over the past four decades has been sleepless nights and broken dreams of retirement.

They’re losing ground at a time when no one can afford to give up an inch.

Protecting Your Money By Indexing

You must understand how to protect yourself so that when the economy is doing well you get to participate and when it’s not doing well you’re not losing your money. You don’t have to be subject to risk and losses in order to put your money to work.

By linking your serious money to the indexes of the S&P 500 or the Russell 2000 or other indexes you can participate in the growth of the markets without exposing it to the risks of market volatility.

If we go back 10 years ago, and you were starting out with $500,000. If your money was in the market you could have used indexing to enjoy growth up to a certain cap. Say it was capped at 15% earning on AAA and AA bonds, your $500,000 would have remained intact during the down years that immediately followed 9/11 where the S&P dropped by 24%

You wouldn’t have earned much during those down years, but more importantly, you also wouldn’t have lost a dime of your principal.

As soon as the economy turned around your money would have started earning again immediately. Better still, when your money is growing again, it’s accumulating tax free thanks to the way it was positioned in the first place.

Re-balancing requires occasionally moving your money depending upon what’s going in the U.S and the world. But if you followed Missed Fortune indexing strategies that $500,000 you started out with would have grown to $1,315,000.

That equals a retroactive 9.6% rate of return compounded annually and it would have grown tax free if you used indexed Maximum Funded Tax Advantage alternatives to IRAs and 401(k)s. This money would also transfer tax free to your heirs in the event of your death.

This is far superior to the tax hit you take when you start pulling money out of your 401(k) or IRA. But to protect your money from higher taxes, inflation and market volatility, you must know and use the Missed Fortune strategies.

Learn how to put these strategies to work for you. Talk to a Missed Fortune advisor today.

Bonus Missed Fortune E-Book: Baby Boomer Blunders The average Baby Boomer has less than $50,000 accumulated for retirement (which means many have less than that), primarily due to bad habits and having money invested in the wrong places where economic downturns can diminish their nest egg. Download this e-book now at www.babyboomerblunders.com.

{ 0 comments }

The U.S. Economy: Living On Borrowed Money

June 26, 2011

Podcast: Download (23.0MB)

This week Doug Andrew discussed the following:

Upcoming Free Webinar

Attend our free 90-minute webinar live over the Internet this coming Tuesday, June 28th at 11:00 a.m. pacific (12:00 p.m. mountain, 1:00 p.m. central, 2:00 p.m. eastern), and again at 6:30 p.m. pacific (7:30 mountain, 8:30 central, 9:30 eastern). The topic is “True Asset and Wealth Optimization.” You’ll learn how to choose the right investments for liquidity, safety, rate of return and tax benefits.

Click Here to Register Now

All attendees receive a bonus hardcover copy of Last Chance Millionaire, Doug Andrew’s New York Times best-selling book.

Watching Government Paint Itself Into a Corner

A recent USA Today article by Richard Wolf claims that “In 7 Weeks U.S. Could Run Out Of Borrowed Money”.

Here are the highlights: Exactly one month ago, the Treasury Dept. began issuing IOUs rather than bonds to some government pension funds. That allowed for continued auctions of so-called “risk free” treasury bonds until August 2nd of this year.

Unless Congress acts by then, the worlds richest nation–unable to borrow $4 billion a day to pay its bills–would risk default. Or would it?

Wolf says to hear Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner tell it, interest rates would spike, stock and home values would sink, savings and investment would dry up and jobs would disappear. Businesses would fail and everything from tax refunds to troops salaries would go unpaid.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says that it would “lead to severe disruptions in financial markets, lower credit ratings and damage to the dollar and treasury securities”.

On the other side, others say the doomsday scenarios are hogwash. Senator Pat Toomy of Pennsylvania says it would take a simple law outlining who gets paid first when the government can no longer borrow 41 cents of every dollar it spends.

As long as bond holders collect interest on time, there would be no default. Just spending cuts and furloughing federal workers or delaying welfare payments.

No one expects something so drastic to happen, but Congress and the White House haven’t found a way to avoid it. We have a serious situation in our country.

A recent article identifies 5 items that could prevent a recovery from taking hold:

1. An oil supply squeeze
2. The Euro-zone question
3. State and local debt woes
4. Another housing slump
5. A sharp slowdown in Asia

So What Can You Do?

If you’re experiencing real heartburn over the prospect of the triple whammy we’re facing over the next 10 years it’s time to pay close attention.

3 of the biggest dangers we’re facing in the coming decade are taxes going up, inflation devaluing the dollar and continuing market uncertainty.

Missed Fortune indexing strategies will teach you how to protect yourself so if the economy goes down, you don’t lose money. You may not make much, but you will not lose and that equals a win in these times. Plus the second the market turns around, you’ll be making money again.

Wall Street has already lost more than 45% of the typical investor’s money twice in the past 10 years. You cannot expose your money to that type of risk.

Those who’ve followed the Missed Fortune strategies have predictably earned a rate of return of 7-8% that has effectively doubled their money every 9 or 10 years. And they’ve been doing it consistently for the past 4 decades.

Compare that to the typical equity mutual fund investor who has only managed an average return of 3.83% annually for the past 20 years. They’ve barely outpaced inflation by a single percent. And inflation is going up.

You can protect yourself by accumulating your money in vehicles that are tax free, by linking your returns to those things that inflate when we have inflation. And finally, you position your serious money so that you don’t lose money when the market goes down and you start earning again the second it goes up.

Learn how to put the Missed Fortune strategies to work for you. Talk to a Missed Fortune advisor today.

Bonus Missed Fortune E-Book: Baby Boomer Blunders The average Baby Boomer has less than $50,000 accumulated for retirement (which means many have less than that), primarily due to bad habits and having money invested in the wrong places where economic downturns can diminish their nest egg. Download this e-book now at www.babyboomerblunders.com.

{ 0 comments }

Countering The Coming Triple Whammy

May 8, 2011

Podcast: Download (23.0MB)

This week Doug Andrew discussed the following:

Upcoming Free Webinar

Attend our free 90-minute webinar live over the Internet this coming Tuesday, May 10th at 11:00 a.m. pacific (12:00 p.m. mountain, 1:00 p.m. central, 2:00 p.m. eastern), and again at 6:30 p.m. pacific (7:30 mountain, 8:30 central, 9:30 eastern). The topic is “True Asset and Wealth Optimization.” You’ll learn how to choose the right investments for liquidity, safety, rate of return and tax benefits.

Click Here to Register Now

All attendees receive a bonus hardcover copy of Last Chance Millionaire, Doug Andrew’s New York Times best-selling book.

Why Taxes Must Go Up

Taxes will be rising. The writing is on the wall.

Federal debt has gone from $9 trillion up to $14 trillion in the last 5 years alone.

According to an article by Curtis Dubay of the Heritage Foundation, Congress would need to more than double income tax collections just to cover the deficit and the debt that we’ve added in the last 5 years.

He says that income tax revenue would have to increase over 144% just to cover the overspending that’s already taken place.

If Congress were to only tax those making over $250,000 per year, which the president has advocated, their top tax rates would have to rise to levels of 132% and 142%.

Since it’s not possible to tax above 100%, these are literally impossible tax levels.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, if the president’s 2012 budget is enacted, interest payments alone will total $931 billion in 2021. That’s 20% of all tax receipts.

95% of all tax revenues would be spoken for by mandatory entitlement programs before Congress could even consider allocating for defense or any other essential function of government.

Raising taxes will not solve the problem as long as spending continues unchecked.

Tax rates would have to be raised perpetually to keep pace with this. This is why taxes will be going up.

The Coming Triple Whammy

In most decades, you’ll have 7 years of market growth and 3 years of market decline. If you had your money in the market during the last decade, you experienced a total of 5 down years, so your 401(k) or IRA is already behind the curve.

Most Americans are only up an average of 2.99% over the last decade thanks to market uncertainty. This is just one facet of the three-pronged challenge before us.

We also have taxes almost certainly going higher when the Bush tax cuts expire in 2012.

And finally, we have the specter of inflation on the horizon.

So how do we deal with this triple whammy?

To protect yourself from rising tax rates, you must be able to employ strategies that have been part of the Internal Revenue Code for decades. These strategies enable you to accumulate, access and transfer your money tax free.

Instead of deferring your taxes to a future time when taxes are going up, you set money aside where it will be tax free now and in the future.

Inflation can be countered by linking your return to those things that go up when there is inflation. This means inflation helps rather than hinders you.

The third danger of market volatility can be nullified by using Missed Fortune strategies that index your money to the market without having to risk your money in the market. In those years that the market grows, your money grows. In those years that the market goes down, you don’t lose your money.

The window of opportunity is short, but it’s open right now. This is the time to reposition your money in order to counter the triple whammy of taxes, inflation and market uncertainty.

Visit with a Missed Fortune advisor and take control of your financial future.

Bonus Missed Fortune E-Book: Baby Boomer Blunders The average Baby Boomer has less than $50,000 accumulated for retirement (which means many have less than that), primarily due to bad habits and having money invested in the wrong places where economic downturns can diminish their nest egg. Download this e-book now at www.babyboomerblunders.com.

{ 0 comments }

31 FLAVORS to Create an Abundant Retirement

November 21, 2010

Podcast: Download (22.9MB)

This week Doug Andrew discussed the following:

Upcoming Complimentary Webinar

Attend our free 90-minute webinar live over the Internet this coming Tuesday, November 23th at 11:00 a.m. pacific (12:00 p.m. mountain, 1:00 p.m. central, 2:00 p.m. eastern), and again at 6:30 p.m. pacific (7:30 mountain, 8:30 central, 9:30 eastern).

The topic is “True Asset Optimization: How to Choose the Right Investments.” You’ll learn how to maintain liquidity and guarantee safety of principal while earning a healthy, tax-free rate of return that outpaces inflation.

Register now by calling 1-888-76-Radio (888-767-2346). If operators are busy, please call again.

All attendees receive a bonus hardcover copy of Last Chance Millionaire, Doug Andrew’s New York Times best-selling book.

Investors Losing Confidence in Traditional Investments

Investors are getting tired of the slow gains for a few years only to have those gains, along with original principal, be lost rapidly.

In 2008, most people lost 31 percent from their IRA and 401(k) and are still not back to what they had in as their initial principal.

Investors are getting fed up with the same traditional advice of investing in IRAs and 401(k)s, to postpone taxes and to have to deal with market volatility for the long-term gain.

According to a new survey from Prince & Associates, 81 percent of investors with $1 million or more in investable assets plan to take money away from their current advisor. An even larger number, 86 percent, plan to tell other investors to avoid their advisor.

Only 2 percent plan to recommend their firm to other investors. That’s of critical importance, because wealthy investors often get investment advice from each other.

Deferring taxes to a later date as taxes continue to rise, lacking liquidity, and placing the rate of return for a retirement nest egg in variable products are only three of the major problems with these traditional investments.

How Can You Gain Confidence and Prepare for an Abundant Retirement?

The first step to gaining confidence is to avoid falling into the investment traps that so many others are facing by deciding not to use the same investment advice that they are.

Why would you defer taxes knowing that the trend is that taxes are rising? Why you would place your retirement hopes into a volatile market and hope to time the market correctly?

By learning the 31 FLAVORS of Missed Fortune, you can:

Choose tax-free investments instead of tax-deferred ones
Have liquidity so that you can access your money when you would like to
Enjoy safety of your principal where you can lock in gains using indexing.

FLAVORS stands for “fortunes lost amidst valid optimization and reallocation strategies.” Implementing 2 or 3 of the 31 can generate $70-80 thousand dollars a year for retirement that is tax free and will continue to be replenished year after year no matter what is happening in the market.

The 31 FLAVORS can show you key points in the different financial aspects of your life that can allow you to sleep comfortably at night knowing that you are not gambling with your retirement. They include:

6 FLAVORS regarding choosing the wrong investments for retirement
6 FLAVORS about your home and real estate
3 FLAVORS on proper tax planning and avoiding unnecessary taxes
7 FLAVORS on asset management
5 FLAVORS regarding risk management
2 FLAVORS about credit and debt management
2 FLAVORS on estate planning

Meet with a Missed Fortune advisor and learn how to implement these 31 FLAVORS and guarantee yourself an abundant retirement.

Bonus Missed Fortune E-Book: Baby Boomer Blunders

The average Baby Boomer has less than $50,000 accumulated for retirement (which means many have less than that), primarily due to bad habits and having money invested in the wrong places where economic downturns can diminish their nest egg.

Download this e-book now at www.babyboomerblunders.com.

{ 0 comments }

Big Government Will Further Depress the Economy

July 4, 2010

Podcast: Download (22.9MB)

This week Doug Andrew discussed the following:

Upcoming Complimentary Webinar

Attend our free 90-minute webinar live over the Internet this coming Tuesday, July 6th at 11:00 a.m. pacific (12:00 p.m. mountain, 1:00 p.m. central, 2:00 p.m. eastern), and again at 6:30 p.m. pacific (7:30 mountain, 8:30 central, 9:30 eastern).

The topic is “True Asset Optimization: How to Choose the Right Investments.” You’ll learn how to maintain liquidity and guarantee safety of principal while earning a healthy, tax-free rate of return that outpaces inflation.

Register now by calling 1-888-76-Radio (888-767-2346). If operators are busy, please call again.

All attendees receive a bonus hardcover copy of Last Chance Millionaire, Doug Andrew’s New York Times best-selling book.

Don’t Be Fooled by Government Misdirection

Currently the government is trying to use the oil spill crisis as an excuse to push through a cap-and-trade program that would ultimately hurt American taxpayers.

This would only negatively affect the economy and raise energy prices for businesses and families. Cap-and-trade basically constitutes an enormous hidden tax that would be forced upon Americans and would cause a higher rate of joblessness and make a bad economic situation worse.

Our leaders should be focusing on solving problems today, stopping the oil spill, strengthening our economy and creating an environment where job creators can thrive.

Instead, politicians have chosen to focus on growing government — whether through cap-and-trade, costly stimulus bills, auto company bailouts, job-killing legislation, or a health-care law that imposes higher taxes.

The Federal Reserve, who promoted the housing mania, and Treasury Department, who bailed out willy-nilly institutions without any consistent rules, is being granted more powers to try to boost our economy.

Larry Kudlow, author of Kudlow’s Money Politics states:

“Stop the crazy spending and borrowing and stocks will start to rise again while economies push up recovery speed. In the United States and around the world stocks have fallen about 11 percent this spring. It’s a signal of lost confidence. Out of control deficit spending has swept the world toward the leftist vision of big government. We need a return to free enterprise incentives in order to speed up recovery.”

In short, leaders should be focused on cutting spending and borrowing to hold down tax rates and try to restore confidence in private enterprise.

Who Will Make Money on Your Investments?

The government is not and will not be pushing its efforts towards the private sector any time soon.

Instead of sitting idly by waiting to see what will happen, investors should seriously think about taking some of their investments “off of the table.”

Taxes are going to rise January 1, 2011 and investors can expect a 5 percent increase in the capital gains tax. The health care bill has already shown Americans two new surprising tax increases.

In her article “How the New Wealth Taxes Will Hit You,” Laura Saunders writes:

“The health-care bill that Congress passed in March contained two surprising new taxes to help pay for the changes: an extra 0.9% levy on wages for couples earning more than $250,000 ($200,000 for singles) and a new 3.8% tax on investment income on those same people (technically, people with ‘adjusted gross incomes’ above those amounts).

“Each tax signals a radical change in policy. For workers, the extra 0.9% levy puts a progressive element in what used to be a totally flat tax. The 3.8% tax on investment income also knocks down a longstanding wall by applying a ‘payroll’ tax to unearned income. Until now, FICA taxes for Social Security and Medicare have applied only to wages, not investment income.”

With the increase in taxes coming and Obama’s continued push to grow big government, future stocks values will be damaged. Any strong week in the market should be viewed as a great time to sell.

Meet with a Missed Fortune advisor to learn how to protect yourself against these and other impending taxes.

Bonus Missed Fortune E-Book: Baby Boomer Blunders

The average Baby Boomer has less than $50,000 accumulated for retirement (which means many have less than that), primarily due to bad habits and having money invested in the wrong places where economic downturns can diminish their nest egg.

Download this e-book now at www.babyboomerblunders.com.

{ 0 comments }

Congress Versus Wall Street

June 15, 2010

Everyone can agree that America suffered financial ruin due in part to actions on Wall Street. But not everyone can agree on how to repair Wall Street.

As financial reform passes the Senate and makes its way through the House, the debate rages on.

Too much oversight and regulation, and America’s financial institutions will be stymied – which could kill America’s fledgling rebound. Too little, and practices that led to the collapse could repeat themselves.

A New York Times article reported:

“Despite the outcry from lobbyists and warnings from conservative Republicans that the legislation will choke economic growth, bankers and many analysts think that the bill approved by the Senate last week will reduce Wall Street’s profits but leave its size and power largely intact. Industry officials are also hopeful that several of the most punitive provisions can be softened before it is signed into law.”

If you’re heavily invested in the market, you’re likely heavily invested in the outcome of this legislation. You also likely suffered more loss than you could have ever anticipated over the past couple years, and you’d rather not experience that again.

But what if you could have been spared the loss? What if you, like the people who optimized their assets and put their serious money in maximum-funded, tax-advantaged contracts, could have maintained their principal – even gained a rate of return of 12, 13 percent or more over the past couple years?

There are ways to prepare for your retirement, to secure your future with savings vehicles that provide safety, liquidity, rate of return, and tax-advantaged benefits.

Learn how to protect yourself, so regardless of legislation, or ups and downs in the market, you can move forward toward true wealth on a steadier, safer path.

Learn more about Missed Fortune strategies now, so you can be better off tomorrow.

Isn’t It Time You Became Wealthy?®

{ 0 comments }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →