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Investing at Record Highs May Cause Problems for Investors

Since the stock market rally, people have been questioning the safety of their investments.  According to USA Todayculs112033, some believe that many stocks will have a stark drop after their record highs, while others think that a gradual fall in stock prices until 2020 is on the table and Warren Buffet thinks that the US stock market is a place where reasonableness prevails.

Rather than asking whether stocks are fairly priced, investors should be focusing on how much they are willing to lose before pulling out.  According to David Salem, chief investment officer at Windhorse Capital Management says that figuring how much financial misery you are willing to put yourself through before backing out.

In addition to helping you planning for worst case scenarios, this will also help you realize whether you will be able to realistically follow through on your planned investments.  In addition, this keeps you from being lulled into a sense security and ambivalence, because you always know how big a hit you can take.

In short, planning for the worst case scenario will help you evaluate where you are and how much more risk you are willing to expose yourself to.

Planning your custom-tailored retirement

Planning for retirement has become a big quandary in recent years.  An average of 10,000 baby boomers are retiring each day and only a miniscule fraction will have pensions.  A plethora of professionals calling themselves things like “retirement coach” and “life planner” have cropped up to help you figure out how to retire.

One way to plan for retirement

One way to plan for retirement

Thirty-five years ago, 62% of retirees from the private sector had pensions, while today, that number has dropped to 7%.  This means that there are crowds of retirees and those soon to join them who don’t know how to use their copious amounts of free time or how to make their money last.  Many of the professionals in this sector have seen an opportunity to craft retirement plans conducive to boomer health, interests, and values.

Retirement coaches come from a variety of backgrounds and also have varied qualifications.  This fact has made it pretty difficult to get an accurate estimate of retirement professionals in the field.  There are programs out there that certify retirement experts, like Retirement Options at Chapel Hill, N.C., who count 832 certified retirement experts in the United States.

Many traditional brokerage firms have even moved into the wishy-washy life-coach realm.  These firms engage in conversations about life priorities as well as financial ones in order to add value to the services already provided.

During this boom in the retirement coach industry, pricing varies.  Some are paid by the hour often more than $100 per hour, while others also use typical advisory fees, which can be up to 2% of total assets annually.

Like payments, training for retirement experts also varies.  At the lowest level, one must simply take a multiple choice test for the Certified Retirement Counselor designation, while others go through intensive multi-course programs for Certified Specialist in Retirement Planning.  If you want to learn more about the different designations and their qualifications, visit this link.

Many retirement ask questions like, “envision your typical day, month, year and what would they be?”  These questions are meant to help find activities that their clients can be happily engaged in.  This is often especially important for those who found a great sense of satisfaction and affirmation in their jobs.

Retirement experts come in all sorts of varieties and it is important that you find one who is qualified to meet your specific needs.