Common Investment Questions

Investing for your retirement is difficult because the markets always change. It is especially difficult in times of high volatility and bear markets. Markets go down about 1/3 of the time and if these losses can be lessened, overall gains will increase. If you can earn an additional 3 to 7% per year it can make a lifestyle difference in your retirement. A skilled investment adviser is not your brother-in-law. Move your portfolio to Harloff Capital Management today.

All registered investment advisors and their representatives are fiduciaries and put client interest ahead of theirs; whereas many financial planners and stock brokers earn commissions from insurance, stocks, and mutual funds and do not put client interest ahead of theirs. When commissions are available it is human nature to try to get as much as possible at the expense of the client. Many planners are both stock brokers and advisors and client returns might suffer. Many financial planners are trained in sales and business but have little to no training in statistic model building or research and thus have little to no ability to go beyond freely available portfolio management methods. A few active investment advisors like Harloff Capital Management, steeped in Ph.D. level math and computer simulation, try to determine bear market conditions by independent research; whereas almost no financial planners think this is possible. In summary, many financial planners and stock brokers are busy selling insurance, stocks, and mutual funds to earn high commissions, and passively wait 6 or 12 months before changing client portfolios even if a bear market takes the market (and client portfolios) down 20% or more.

Passive investing is buy-and-hope for periods of 6 to 12 months where advisors tell clients to stay the course in stressed markets. Dynamic Portfolio Management adviser like Harloff Capital Management alter stock/bond/cash ratios with market change. Most advisors usually keep 40% of client money in bonds to buffer market volatility (losses). This 40% is essentially an insurance cost to clients because, over the long run, stocks return higher than bonds.

Almost all financial planners and stock brokers employ common portfolios for clients and have little portfolio management capability. This is why there is little difference in portfolios amongst the vast majority large or small financial service firms.

Active investment advisers like Harloff Capital Management, focus on changing client portfolios to attempt to conserve client funds in bear markets; whereas many financial planners re-balance once or twice a year independent of market conditions. Active investment advisers like Harloff Capital Management, inform clients of historic market volatility in terms of maximum potential % loss; whereas many other advisers tell clients of obtuse standard deviation limits so as not to scare or fully inform clients.

Higher price stock market is known as a bull market and it happens when the economy is growing and earnings increase. In contrast, bear markets are decreasing stock market prices when the economy and jobs are contracting and corporate earnings are declining.

We have been in a bull market since the last bear market in 2008-2009. But 2018 is a very volatile year with a couple of corrections (10% losses).

The last bear market was in 2008-2009. It was caused by the bank combining home loans into colatorized debt obligations in a sloppy way and when home owners stopped paying mortgage payments brought the banks to the brink of bankruptcy. The volatile 2018 apparently is due to the reversal of quantitative easing by the FED and by their increase in short term interest rates. It is possible that this could lead to a recession late 2019 .

Monthly payments will limit your return on investment to about 4 to 6% that is offered by the insurance annuity. We recommend lump sum payout and professional money management by a fiduciary registered investment advisory firm such as Harloff Capital Management.

The Federal Reserve forces inflation to be at least 2% per year or more. Remember when a house used to cost less than today’s car? This is caused by inflation. It is important for investments to beat inflation.