Don't Lose Your Pension! 8 Questions you absolutely must ask your financial advisors

The language and logic of financial planning demistified
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How do you make sense of all the financial advice thrown at you?

Ask yourself one simple question: "How much less was your net worth in December 2008 compared with May 2008?  Imagine if your had to retire December 2008? This book will help you get the most from the financial advice offered by professionals; and most importantly help you avoid becoming a sucker and losing a huge chunk of your money. Whether you make use of one financial advisor or a few, you need to ask some basic questions to avoid costly investment mistakes. After all it is your money and you stand to lose!
 

Ponder This!

 

Compare what we advised with some of the comments that have since appeared in the media:

 

  • We pointed out that even a track record of 10 years is not enough to show that the fund manager's performance outstripped the toss of a coin. This is what Fortune Magazine (Dec 21 2009) reports happened to Bill Miller, the famed investor who beat the S&P 500 for 15 consecutive  years: "He walked his Legg Mason Value Trust right into the propellers of the financial crisis by betting on AIG and Freddie Mac." (p. 34)
     
  • Yes it is very difficult if not impossible to choose a mutual fund that will deliver. Different figures are bandied about. In the same issue of Fortune they reported that 60% of mutual funds in the US failed to beat the Vanguard 500 index over the past 15 years. It gets even worse if you look at the funds with over US$ 100,000 under investment between 1984 and 1998. Then only 4% beat the Vanguard index . Of course it depends on how you frame the time span. But let's take  the odds of the past 15 years. With three cards face down on the table, how much of your retirement money are you willing to risk that that you will pick the Ace of Diamonds correctly? 
    Read more. 
Why would a communications expert write a book about investment for retirement?
 

"Well, precisely because I am not a financial expert who is a communications expert. Like everybody else I am in need of financial and investment services and found a world full of vague if not contradicting claims in a language I couldn’t understand. I decided to apply my craft to the subject. After all, if a service is offered to the broad public, it should be explained in language that the general public can understand without acquiring a whole new specialist vocabulary!" 

In the end getting clarity is your responsibility! And you get it by asking the right questions. My book offers 8 questions that will set you on the road to:

Understanding the risks you take - translating the risks in such a way that you understand what they are and how large they loom!

 Dr Bertie du Plessis is the founder of MindPilot (Pty) Ltd, a strategic communications consultancy to some of South Africa's leading business leaders and global corporations. He has been a guest lecturer in six different disciplines at tertiary level. He currently teaches an elective for the Gordon Institute of Business Science's (globally ranked top 40) MBA programme on "Imagination for the business mind." Find MindPilot at www.mindpilot.co.za. His blog on fin24.com, South Africa's largest business portal is regularly most read and most commented on. Some of the material in the book was developed in a lively debate on the the blog which you may find at www.bertieblogs.com   .

What do you think?

 

I would like to hear of your experiences with investments: What were your best decisions? Your worst decisions? What was the reason for them? What investments do you have for retirement? What did you not understand about them when you bought them. What is the single most important thing that the financial advisor or planner should have told you?

  Click here to contribute. 

 

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