My Medical Device Sales Career

Managing Your Investments

Let's start sharing resources to learn more about handling our finances. Most of us have been so busy making money for our companies and learning how to ask probing questions to close a sale, we NEVER learned how to invest our own hard earned money.

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Permalink Reply by Linda Hertz on October 28, 2010 at 10:19pm

I learned of a new site in the Social-Networking Investing world called www.kalengo.com, a social media site that performs modern-portfolio-theory style asset-allocation calculations for subscribers, the let's them share the results with others. Kalengo does this all for free. I have not used this service but I understand there are two other sites that charge an annual fee for subscriptions of $120 to $150 annual as of this post: www.marketriders.com and http://corp.financialengines.com/. I also understand that a Intuits lighter version of the same thing www.mint.com is available.

If you would like to read The Electronic Investor, Mike Hogan's, opinion on this type of service from his October 25, 2010 Article from Barron's Magazine. He indicated the first three sites mentioned are based on Nobel Prize winning asset-allocation strategy popular with insitutional money managers. I did register with the new Free site but have not used yet. Interesting and I believe worth a look!

I guess the sites calculate total costs and fees of your portfolio, compounded rates over 10 years. It is supposed to help in maintaining asset rebalancing to keep you diversified. Interersting!

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Permalink Reply by Linda Hertz on November 21, 2010 at 1:26pm

I have been trying this free service for my stocks and investments...and I love it! You can merely cut and paste your portfolio into your free membership portfolio box and then DAILY you will get emails on any news regarding the stocks you own or you are watching, here is the Front Page: Seeking Alpha

Create Your Own Profile and who needs to look for the news on your investments...they can shoot to your IPhone!

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Permalink Reply by Linda Hertz on January 17, 2011 at 11:40am

As some of you know I am a Stock Position and Swing Trader (my hobby) AND heavily involved in managing my own finances successfully now for several years. I am always looking for resources that I feel are valuable to those that do not have time to learn how to manage their own hard earned money (like when I was a AVP at Tyco or RVP at Smith + Nephew)!

First and foremost if you are in a MUTUAL fund you need to GET out of them...unfortunately I know many of you are bound by a 401K from your current employer where that is ALL they offer, so you have to pick the best from the rubble. Remember that a no load mutual fund has OTHER charges called Admin fees...ask about Admin fees..if your broker or people handling your 401k say they have a no load mutual fund..ASK what is the Admin Fee. You see they make 1% to 2% REGARDLESS if your 401K's goes down in value..they just make 1% to 2% on the smaller total account value. In other words they make money on your money REGARDLESS if your fund goes up or DOWN (don't you wish you had a job like that?). A great deal right? Yep...for them!

If you can get into ETF's that are index funds (they follow the market) and those that also shed a dividend too...go for it. I think those funds are great for those of you who don't actively manage your money...which I think is a majority of the Members at the Linda Hertz Group due to your busy occupations. At a later date I will post ETF's that do just that...pay a dividend.

I found some links from a December 26, 2010 LA Times "Money Talk" segment that provided Financial links you may want to try for FEE only Financial Planners. They should charge an hourly rate and they DO NOT MAKE money off your investment (and they shouldn't from the backside either...being paid from a fund they are promoting). If a Planner advises a Mutual Fund...or an Annuity: GET A NEW Financial Planner!

www.garrettplanningnetwork.com and the National Assn. of Personal Financial Advisors at www.napfa.org

I hope this helps you as you plan to invest your savings and plan your future retirement..whether that is 5, 10 or 20 more years away!

Regards,

Linda Hertz

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Permalink Reply by Linda Hertz on May 12, 2011 at 7:32pm

I found some great links for ETF (Exchange Traded Funds). Again, I am just a hobbiest, but I feel ETF's tied to indexes are so much better and low cost compared to Mutual Funds. Here are some resource links I picked up from a recent read:

www.etfconnect.com

www.etfguide.com

www.etftrends.com

http://finance.yahoo.com/etf This Yahoo one is GREAT! It explains ETF's, rates them and current value/returns!

www.indexuniverse.com

I understand from this read that there are really only 9 or 10 companies that offer ETF's.

Larger Companies

www.ishares.com

www.spdrindex.com

www.streettracks.com

Smaller

www.bldrsfunds.com