Every meeting we have with clients includes a line item on the agenda: Fire Drill.
What would you do if the market dropped significantly tomorrow? What would that look like for you? For years now it has felt like an unnecessary discussion point, even with the occasional pull back due due to a tweet or tariff threat. Yet we keep it on the agenda because, in the words of Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan until they’re punched in the face.”
Two months ago, no one could have anticipated a worldwide pandemic resulting in a virtual halt of economic activity. Yet it happened. But isn’t that the purpose of fire drills? To know what the plan is if-and-when something disastrous happens?
https://prosperion.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/fire-drill.jpg5001000Steve Boorenhttps://prosperion.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/whitelogosized.pngSteve Booren2020-03-27 09:48:462020-03-27 10:09:57Fire Drills and Why We Do Them
Cold winter weather means it is soup season here in Colorado, and none feel more familiar than Campbell’s Tomato Soup. Just the name conjures a familiar aroma, a warmth in your chest.
Campbell’s feels familiar because it’s been an American icon for more than a century. Introduced in 1898, Campbell’s tomato soup is an excellent benchmark for understanding the impact of the persistent enemy of all investors: inflation. For more than 100 years, the size hasn’t changed, but the price sure has. About 45 years ago, in 1974, the soup cost about $0.12 per can. Today, it retails for about $0.87 per can. That points to an average inflation rate of 4.3 percent.
Forty-five years may sound like a long time, but that’s about the length of a typical retirement. Read more →
The average American spends more than 85 hours per month watching TV. The same person will likely spend about 265 hours sleeping and 228 hours working. Know how much time they’ll spend working on their finances? About 1.8 minutes, (yes, that works out to 96 seconds) per day.
It seems crazy to me that people will spend an hour on Yelp trying to find the perfect taco bar for dinner, but will invest thousands of dollars based on a 30-second spot on the Mad Money TV show. Read more →
https://prosperion.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/tv-picture.jpg7551500Steve Boorenhttps://prosperion.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/whitelogosized.pngSteve Booren2019-11-20 13:22:122019-11-20 13:22:12Improving Investor Behavior: Investing time now will pay dividends later
Anyone who has ever spent time outdoors understands and appreciates the value of a sharp knife. Whether stripping wood to start a fire, using it as a cooking utensil, cleaning a fish, or for any of a million other purposes, the trusty knife is an essential tool. But knives also have inherent danger as well. Used the wrong way, a knife can quickly put an end to a fun camping trip, or worse – a life.
With this in mind, let’s consider compound interest. For those who don’t understand the concept, compound interest is money earned on money spent or saved, typically expressed as a percentage. If you have a savings account, you’ve earned interest (albeit a tiny amount). This interest is compounded (i.e., multiplied) when the amount is left alone over a period of time.
In previous articles, we’ve discussed time as our most valuable asset. With only 1,440 minutes per day, how we choose to spend our time and where we focus our attention deserves the same rigorous budgeting that managing money does, perhaps even more so. Money is a resource; there can always be more of it. But time is finite, and there is no getting it back once it’s gone… or is there?
There’s a well-known quote by American author H. Jackson Brown that goes, “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”
But I want to challenge the notion that we all have the same amount of time each day. Think about it like this: I doubt Michelangelo had to mow his yard. I bet Thomas Jefferson didn’t spend much time in traffic. And when Einstein showed up to the restaurant, they probably made a table available for him. Read more →
https://prosperion.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/clock.jpg6461500Steve Boorenhttps://prosperion.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/whitelogosized.pngSteve Booren2019-09-20 11:21:462019-09-20 11:21:46Improving Investor Behavior: The Price of Time
My son and I were in the car driving to the store as he struggled to plug in his phone with a USB cable. He flipped the cable back and forth a few times before it finally slipped in. “If I had a superpower, I hope it would be to knowing which direction I should use when plugging in a USB cable.”
Over decades of advising families, I’ve studied their investment behavior. From those who made mistakes to those who succeeded, a list of significant practices naturally came to mind. These “superpowers” help make investors successful. They can’t leap over buildings with a single bounce or see into the future (though this could be a pretty good investment superpower), but they do manage to achieve better than average results, almost as if by magic. What are these superpowers?
If I asked you to define retirement, how would you describe it? Take some time and think about it. You’re probably envisioning white sandy beaches, trips to the golf course, and visits with family, free from the constraints of work and email. Sounds nice, right?
That’s how a lot of people see retirement. The belief is that upon reaching a certain age (usually around 65), retirement should be an expectation – a foregone conclusion. And once retired, people will get to enjoy “the good life” of unlimited freedom, time, and fun.
But when I’m asked to define retirement, I do it a little differently. I think back to 1996. Read more →
As a financial advisor, I am typically hired by clients to help them manage their resources. Most often, these are financial resources including cash, investments, etc. Sometimes I help people to manage their business resources such as connecting professionals, encouraging action, and providing advice to help make sound decisions. But there is one resource that I help investors to consider, one that we all have, but tend to be terrible at managing.
https://prosperion.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/whitelogosized.png00Steve Boorenhttps://prosperion.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/whitelogosized.pngSteve Booren2019-04-23 12:31:592019-06-18 12:10:16Improving Investor Behavior - Managing Your Time Like Money
Financial advice is usually broken into three steps. First, define your goals. Where do you want to go? Next comes a plan. This is the recipe for working toward your goals with actionable and measurable steps. Then comes implementation when you start your plan.
The first two steps lay out the “What” of your financial future; the last deals with the “How.” All too often investors make it through the first steps with optimism and progress, only to be led astray with the last. This is when experts, products, advertisements, advisors, and everyone else in the financial world tell you their way is best – and all the others? Well, they just don’t measure up.
Of course, this leaves investors with a problem. Who can you trust? Read more →
https://prosperion.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/whitelogosized.png00Steve Boorenhttps://prosperion.us/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/whitelogosized.pngSteve Booren2019-03-17 13:25:112019-06-18 12:10:30Improving Investor Behavior - Doubt, Sold with a Smile
This article is set to appear in the Denver Post in about one week. We felt it was worthwhile to share with our clients now, given the events of the past few days.
Shark Week is among the longest running and most popular cable programs in history. First appearing 30 years ago in 1988, the show has since been watched and celebrated by millions. Why would a program about sharks and their danger be so popular? I think it plays on the emotion of fear, and more interestingly, people’s desire to be a little bit scared.
This is quite the paradox: some people enjoy engaging in an activity designed to make them uncomfortable. The same can be said for horror movies, especially at this time of year. In both circumstances, however, the fear is often wholly unfounded. Sharks are responsible for about six deaths per year, and I highly doubt zombies will be taking over the world anytime soon. Instead, people should be much more afraid of mosquitos with their death toll last year of more than 830,000 people.
My point is this: sometimes our greatest fears are the most unfounded. Whether it’s an oversized fish or monsters under the bed, our worst fears take up an oversized portion of our conscious and drive actions that can be damaging and counterproductive. Fear is a powerful emotion and one you must learn to rein in if you want to be a successful investor.
