A Funny Thing Happened After We Crushed Our Fundraising Goal!

If there is one piece of universally accepted business advice, it may be to set goals. Not far behind would be to be sure that your goals are written, specific and measurable. And then we’d probably get to the advice about setting them high and building stretch goals -- goals that are achievable, but will be difficult to pull off.

Personally I’m a big believer in goals and stretch goals but as an investment manager and financial adviser, I am frequently talking about managing risk, setting realistic expectations and being a prudent investor. Don’t go for the home run. Take reasonable risks, earn an appropriate return for taking those risks and generally go for slow and steady returns in a diversified portfolio.

Perhaps true for investments, but perhaps not for charitable fundraising! Through the efforts of many great friends and our family members, we were able to raise over $7,300 for cancer research. For us and our event, it was a record haul. The annual fundraising event has grown from a few hundred dollars, to $1,000, to over $3,000 last year and then we more than doubled our donation from last year! It was a smashing success by every measure. Last week, we delivered our check, took our pictures, delivered all the thank yous and as we were talking about next year, I went into expectation setting mode and started to say things like it would still be great if we do the $3,000 again next year, just in case we can’t repeat the performance, yada, yada, yada.

Well, the good friend who runs the event would have none of it. “Absolutely not, we have to get bigger and raise more every year! Next year, WE WILL BE BIGGER". And you know what? A funny thing happened on the way to the parking lot. Instead of talking about how to repeat the $7,000 we immediately started talking about ways to grow the event even bigger and raise even more. Stretch goals are as much about attitude as they are about execution. We started to think about how to grow rather than just protect and repeat what we had done. After a bit, it almost resembled a plan! (We'll talk about planning and execution another day) But that is exactly what happens when you set any goal, you start trying to figure out how you are going to achieve that specific goal. As we brainstormed about it more, the ideas started flowing, the excitement grew and we now believe that next year will be bigger and better than ever. Attitude started it all.

Everyone should certainly have investing goals and a plan to achieve them, but if you haven't revisited your personal, professional, civic or charitable goals in a while, give it a try and don't be afraid to stretch, you might be surprised how achievable they really are.

PLEASE REMEMBER:

- INVESTING AND INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT INVOLVES RISK, INCLUDING THE LOSS OF YOUR INITIAL INVESTMENT OR ANY INVESTMENT GAINS.

- PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS.

- THIS GENERIC INFORMATION IS PROVIDED FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRUED AS A RECOMMENDATION FOR ANY INDIVIDUAL TO TAKE A SPECIFIC ACTION.

- PLEASE INVEST PRUDENTLY AND SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP FROM A FINANCIAL ADVISOR, INVESTMENT MANAGER, ACCOUNTANT, LAWYER OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL ON MATTERS THAT YOU ARE UNSURE OF OR THAT ARE UNIQUE TO YOUR PERSONAL CIRCUMSTANCES.

- FINANCIAL PLANNING AND INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT SERVICES PROVIDED BY J. BRADFORD INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT, NASHUA NH.

The Best Performing Asset Class of 2017...

Will be known on December 31st, and probably not a day before.

Now, there is a big difference between knowing for sure what will happen and making forecasts and projections to help determine what is likely to happen. The problem is that it can be hard to tell what an article, story or sales pitch is really saying.

As everyone is well aware, there is no shortage of opinions these days and the investment world is no different. We see everything from full blown uninformed speculation on how unfolding economic and political events may impact the markets, to thoughtful and careful analysis to gain insights and build expectations to which asset classes we think will likely perform better than others. As with many things, some predictions are better than others, and at the end of the day, the market speaks and often moves in unexpected and unanticipated ways.

That unpredictability and inability to precisely determine the direction of the market is one of the strongest cases for diversification. Buy a little of everything and you'll get a nice blended average in the long run. Many mutual funds and exchange traded funds use this exact strategy. It is a very reasonable approach.

There have been many attempts to determine patterns in asset class returns over time, but few predictable reliable patterns emerge. Here is a grid of returns of some popular asset classes over the past 16 years. Do you see a pattern? Please let me know if you do. :-)

The point is that even though we can be fairly confident about some aspects of the economy and markets – such as interest rates rising in the short to medium term, we can't be 100% sure. We also don't know the magnitude or the impact of other factors, such as inflation.

So what do you do?

For our money and our client's money, we use our best judgment about what is most likely to happen and then align your investments with your willingness and ability to take risk. We invest for the long term. The process we use is personalized and updated periodically. Once you've built a diversified portfolio aligned to your risk tolerance, you can generally expect less volatility and you can confidently say that you've participated in that hot sector, whatever it may be and whenever it may be.

PLEASE REMEMBER:

- INVESTING AND INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT INVOLVES RISK, INCLUDING THE LOSS OF YOUR INITIAL INVESTMENT OR ANY INVESTMENT GAINS.

- PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS.

- THIS GENERIC INFORMATION IS PROVIDED FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRUED AS A RECOMMENDATION FOR ANY INDIVIDUAL TO TAKE A SPECIFIC ACTION.

- PLEASE INVEST PRUDENTLY AND SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP FROM A FINANCIAL ADVISOR, INVESTMENT MANAGER, ACCOUNTANT, LAWYER OR OTHER PROFESSIONAL ON MATTERS THAT YOU ARE UNSURE OF OR THAT ARE UNIQUE TO YOUR PERSONAL CIRCUMSTANCES.

- FINANCIAL PLANNING AND INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT SERVICES PROVIDED BY J. BRADFORD INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT, NASHUA NH.

National Be a Millionaire Day - Will You Be One?

It's May 20th and it's National Be a Millionaire Day! You may be surprised to learn that most Americans will in fact earn over a million dollars in their lifetime.

According to inContext -"By retirement, graduates with bachelor's and advanced degrees can expect to have earned an average total of $1.8 million while associate's degree graduates only reach $1.1 million—a 61 percent advantage."

But that's probably not what most of us have in mind when we think millionaire. Most of us consider a millionaire as someone who has a million dollars plus saved or on hand. Fair enough. But 99%+ of us are not going to become millionaires by winning the lottery, answering questions on a game show or by finding that high flying stock.

We're going to become millionaire in these 5 easy steps:

1) We're going to save a bunch ourselves.

2) We are going to let the market do some of the work by investing in a risk appropriate portfolio.

3) We are going to take advantage of all opportunities to boost savings, like 401(k) employer match.

4) We are going to diversify our portfolio and periodically rebalance.

5) We are going to use optimal tax strategies.

Real simple example with very simplistic assumptions, but check it out. 30 year time horizon. 6.5% annual interest rate compounded monthly. You invest $280 every two weeks and your employer matches 50% or $140. With those and other simplifying assumptions, viola, the portfolio grows to just over $1,000,000 in 30 years.

$218,400 came from our savings and $109,200 from our employer. If we didn't have an employer match, we would have been on the hook for $327,600. But tax efficiency and a diversified portfolio invested in the market did roughly 2/3 of the work!! And that's the point. There is tremendous power in simply being invested in a diversified and risk appropriate portfolio that you rebalance periodically.

So go ahead and occasionally buy that lottery ticket so that you can dream about your life as a millionaire -- that you earned by hard work and smart investing.

PLEASE REMEMBER:

- Investing and investment management involves risk, including the loss of your initial investment or any investment gains.

- Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

- This generic information is provided for educational purposes only and should not be construed as a recommendation for any individual to take a specific action.

- Please invest prudently and seek professional help from a financial advisor, investment manager, accountant, lawyer or other professional on matters that you are unsure of or that are unique to your personal circumstances.

- Financial Advisor and Investment Management Services provided by J. Bradford Investment Management, Nashua NH.