Welcome to the ETF Prime Podcast

Costly Mistakes Can Derail Retirement

Listen to The ETF Store Show every Tuesday at 9am on ESPN 1510 as we cover everything you need to know about Exchange Traded Funds and the world of investing.

Click here to listen to The ETF Store Show now.

On our most recent radio broadcast, we walked through the 8 common mistakes that retirees make as outlined by Paul Merriman on The Wall Street Journal’s Marketwatch.  At The ETF Store, we spend a great deal of time focusing on ETFs and ensuring our client portfolios are properly positioned, but we also work with clients to put together comprehensive financial plans to help them reach their financial goals.  For retirees, this process includes discussing all of the key factors that go into a financially successful retirement.  There are many potential pitfalls that can derail your retirement and any one of these pitfalls can have disastrous results.  On our show, we discussed each of the pitfalls listed in Mr. Merriman’s article and explained how you can avoid them:

1. Failing to develop a budget.
2. Failing to budget predictable expenses such as income taxes or home repairs.
3. Basing your standard of living on unrealistically high returns from your investments.
4. Withdrawing more money from your retirement portfolio than your portfolio can support over the long-run.
5. Overreacting to bear markets.
6. Hanging on to risky investments for too long.
7. Purchasing illiquid investments.
8. Giving away too much money to either charities or children.

In our weekly market update, we delved into gold and Japanese equities, two areas that have garnered a lot of media attention recently and both of which have been significantly impacted by central bank monetary policy.  We looked at what’s next for both assets and explained how, as always, proper portfolio diversification can allow you to sleep at night regardless of how these assets perform.  Speaking of portfolio diversification, in our weekly ETF Spotlight segment, we examined a broad based, developed international equity ETF (iShares Core MSCI EAFE ETF – ticker symbol IEFA) and explained how international equity exposure can offer diversification benefits to your portfolio.  Learn more about IEFA at www.etfbuzz.com.

Asset Allocation and the Rise in the Popularity of ETFs

Listen to The ETF Store Show every Tuesday at 9am on ESPN 1510 as we cover everything you need to know about Exchange Traded Funds and the world of investing.

Click here to listen to The ETF Store Show now.

On our most recent radio broadcast, we focused on a subject that sounds complex, but is rooted in a very basic practice – asset allocation.  Asset allocation is the process of getting the right mix of investments in your portfolio given your particular situation.  You take into account factors such as your age, risk tolerance, and financial goals and then work to invest in the right asset classes in a manner which will ideally allow you to meet those financial goals.  At The ETF Store, it’s our belief that the performance of your investment portfolio, over the long-run, isn’t determined by picking the next hot mutual fund manager or some high flying tech stock, but instead, your returns are based on proper asset allocation decisions – you want the right mix of stocks, bonds, alternative assets, and even cash in your portfolio.  There was a landmark study that concluded over 90% of the variability of long-term investor returns can be attributed to asset allocation.  So while the concept of asset allocation is fairly straightforward, its importance cannot be overstated.

On our show, we explained how ETFs have completely changed the game for investors by allowing them to invest in a wide range of asset classes that were previously unavailable or difficult to access – investments like gold, commodities, real estate, and emerging market stocks and bonds.  ETFs have provided investors a way to easily and cost effectively express asset allocation decisions.  We also delved into how investors can attempt to optimize returns and reduce risk through proper asset allocation in their investment portfolios.

In our weekly market update, we looked at the top 10 ETF asset gainers so far in 2013 and offered some thoughts on why these ETFs have attracted investor dollars.  In our weekly ETF Spotlight segment, we examined a broad based US Real Estate Investment Trust, or REIT, ETF (Vanguard REIT Index ETF – ticker symbol VNQ) and explained how real estate investments can offer yield, an inflation hedge, and some diversification benefits.  Learn more about VNQ at etfbuzz.com.