Being smart with $$ -- Early September 2014 posts

September 11, 2014
Just because it's on sale doesn't mean it's cheap. And if you can buy it for $30 a month for the next two years instead of paying upfront, it still costs $720. A payment like that on one item after another from graduation to retirement can mean $100,000 less in your IRA.
- Larry Pike, CFA, Client Priority Financial Advisors LLC
- www.clientpriority.com

September 8, 2014
There is an old Wall Street expression that says "buy the rumor, sell the fact." It means that stock prices often go up in anticipation of good news and then many times fall when the actual good news is announced. In September 2012, Apple's iPhone 5 was introduced. The stock was at an historical high at that point and then lost approximately half its value in the next few months. That doesn't mean the same thing will happen this time now that Apple is again at a new high and about to announce its iPhone 6. Right when you think you have figured out a trend, the opposite often happens because everyone else figured it out at the same time and might be doing the same thing as you.

- Larry Pike, CFA, Client Priority Financial Advisors LLC
- www.clientpriority.com

September 6, 2014

The average American spends 35% of their after-tax paycheck on housing (including utilities and insurance) and they save 12% (plus employer matches) says Kiplingers. How are YOU doing?
- Larry Pike, CFA
- www.clientpriority.com

September 2, 2014

80% of managers of large-cap stock funds have underperformed a simple S&P 500 index fund so far this year according to S&P Capital IQ Fund Research. Analysts say this worse-than-usual performance is likely due to managers guessing stocks will fall and keeping a lot of their funds' money in cash instead of stocks like they are supposed to.   But what if you think your allocation to stocks in your portfolio should be, say, 60%, and then it turns out you only have 50% in stocks because your stock-fund manager isn't buying stocks? In a year like this with stocks up about 8% year to date, that just cost you real money.

- Larry Pike, CFA
- www.clientpriority.com