If you or your parents have a retirement account, (or any investment accounts for that matter) now is a perfect time to get connected to how those accounts are invested. While you may have outsourced all of this to a broker, which is fine, I don’t believe you should ever allow your investments to be made without your clear understanding of exactly what you are investing in as well as how and whether your investments align with your plans for the future.
Some brokers and advisors believe this, too. Unfortunately, because it takes more time to ensure you understand your investments, many brokers and advisors would rather keep you in the dark. Now is not the time (or ever, really) for you to be okay with being in the dark about your investments.
Educate Yourself
If you or your parents have a retirement account, and you are not intimately connected to how those assets are being invested, it’s time to get more involved.
Log in to your retirement account or pull your last statement and look. Many brokerages select investment funds for their clients’ portfolios based on rates of growth. They’ll offer investment options based on a few tiers of growth and risk, and very often you have no idea what your assets are actually invested in.
Labels like “slow-growth” or “conservative” or “high-growth” or “income” aren’t enough to tell you exactly where your money is invested. So, what you want to do now is look at your statement, which should contain the names of the funds chosen for you, and you can go from there to do your research. Look up each of the funds on sites like Yahoo Finance to see what you are investing in, and whether you understand these companies, believe in their future growth, and want to stay invested there.
Go through this process with your parents, too. The money they have invested in the stock market is part of your overall family wealth. If it’s not there to support them through their senior years, that financial responsibility will eventually fall to you. Having these conversations with them now can be difficult, but it’s important.
If you have a broker you work with, call them now, and ask to get on a video conference. Then, have them help you review each investment, why it’s been chosen, and whether there may be better or other options for you or your parents.
Here’s the key: make sure you understand it, and don’t hang up the phone until you do. If your broker is using words you don’t understand, keep asking questions until you do understand. If you need a referral to an advisor give us a call.
With everything that is happening in the world—and with the volatility of the stock market and our current reality —knowing your options is vital to preserving the full legacy you and your parents have worked hard to build.
Dedicated to empowering your family, building your wealth and defining your legacy,
