Investing is more a game of temperament than it is a game of intellect. Doing the due diligence to be a successful investor is certainly time consuming, but it doesn't require an insanely high IQ.

One of the most difficult things to overcome when managing your investments or retirement accounts is all the noise. You have apps, news stations, youtube influencers, people on facebook, and much more all telling you how to invest and thinking they can predict the future!
A great skill to master is cutting out the noise. Finding out the truth of what actually makes an impact on your investments is key. Luckily for you I've spent over 12 years dedicating my time to finding out the truth for proper investing!
***Investing requires risk and loss of capital, this is not a solicitation of securities and purely for educational purposes."
1. Low Fees- Low fee investing is crucial to success long term with your portfolios. It's important to focus on the costs involved with investing including advisory fees, commissions, closing costs, etc. It's ironic that I'm sharing this as number once since I'm in the wealth management business, but it's true! The less you pay us, the better your performance can be. That is why we focus our practice on being a low fee advisory. Take an account of $750,000 for example. Let's say this account has annual fees of 1.5% to manage and handle your planning needs as well. Now consider simply reducing those fees to 1% per year. Many people wouldn't see that as a big change, but let's break this down.
Instead of paying $11,250 per year, the fees would be only $7,500. Not a huge difference, but certainly meaningful. Now let's extend this over the next 20 years of retirement. $3,750 per year x 20 years = $75,000! This is a difference of $75,000 just evaporating from your account, not to mention compounding interest on this. That can be an entire year or two of income in retirement guaranteed to dissolve overtime with fees!

2. Invest in What You Know- If you do not outsource your investing, and decide to invest in an active capacity, it's important to focus on what you know and understand. There's no perfect place to invest your money. If there was, everyone would do it! You must consider your skills, experience, risk tolerance, and what you feel you have an edge at. If you have experience in the healthcare industry, perhaps it makes sense to focus more of your portfolio to these companies and etfs. If you have experience in construction, maybe you should double down and accumulate real estate. Everyone has an opinion on what they think the "best investment" is. The only best investment is what fits your skill set and experience level. This is what reduces your risk because you know the ins and outs of the business or industry.
3. Don't Trade- Trading stocks and speculating seems like a sexy way to invest. It has been marketed this way to incentivize speculation. The truth is, your performance will be worse than if you focused on long term investing. Trading stocks is simply gambling, and you do not have the resources that hundred billion dollar wall street firms do for research, access to the stock exchange, and incredible high speed computer algorithms. It also is less tax efficient. Let's say you have a lucky break one year and make a ton of profitable trades. Those will be taxed as short term capital gains, as opposed to long term capital gains, which is less beneficial for the investor.

4. Time in the market, not timing the market- We all have a fascination with predicting the future. This has been evident since the beginning of time for humans. The problem is it doesn't work too well! Once you realize you can't predict the future, investing get's easier. Trying to pin point exactly when the market will drop, or when it's at it's peak is a useless endeavor. The truth is, the time invested accumulating compound interest is much more important than the initial price of the market when buying in. Over a long period of time, success will come to those that stay true to their investment thesis, and avoid getting in and out of the market all the time.
5. The economy and the stock market are different- This one took me a while to understand. You would assume that if main street is struggling, so should wall street. They certainly have a connection, but keep in mind the S&P 500 is the largest 500 US companies. These companies have significantly more resources than the local restaurant down the street with 2 employees. It's crucial to have an understanding of basic economics and how industries work in certain business cycles. Just be cognizant that just because the market is doing good or bad, doesn't mean the local economy will do the same.
"The biggest risk of all is not taking one"
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