The best way to plan your retirement fund nest egg is to layout an investment roadmap early in your career life. Mapping out each phase of your life the important investment portfolio you should have. Financial advisor recommends a multistage retirement path which needs a multistage approach to investing. In the first stage, you could be begin with some income from part-time work or side income after retiring from your main career. That steady secondary cash flow means you’ll need less income from your portfolio, allowing you to invest aggressively for growth. Even if you retire at 60, you could still have 20 to 30 years ahead of you. Most financial advisor agrees that you need to be a long-term investor.Once you have entered the second stage of retirement, in which you retire from work completely, you will need more portfolio income. But financial advisor suggest that you need not invest in bond too aggressively. Bear in mind that we are coming off a 20 year bull market in bonds in which investors were rewarded with both income and capital appreciation that came from falling yields. As interest rates fall, older and higher yielding bonds became more valuable. Now that long term government bonds yield less than 5 percent, so there is not much to gain.Seriously speaking, financial advisor recommends that retiree really need a strategy that is a bit more sophisticated particularly if they want their money to last through the third or sunset stage of retirement. This is more evident with raising health care and living costs.As such, financial advisor recommends that you invest in the following portfolio:1.Midcap stocks 10%2.Small cap stocks 10%3.International stocks 10%4.Short-term fixed income 30%5.Large cap stocks 40%Your retirement nest eggs should continue to grow with the stocks market while the bonds cover living expenses. In order to achieve success in retirement finds investing; one thing everyone should do is not to procrastinate in your aggressive retirement funds investment planning. Some people view retirement as some event that is too distant and don’t save enough. But once they hit retirement age, suddenly they realize they don’t know anything and too late. You need to know how to plan on living, and you need to plan on living longer!That comes to another important financial planning knowledge; how to manage longevity risk.What is longevity risk? Simply state longevity risk is the possibility that you’ll run out of money before you die. Most people start retirement without realize that their portfolio isn’t big enough. So what’s the solution? Save more when you’re working. As you approach retirement, you’ll need to reconcile your budget with your portfolio. For example, if you expect your annual expenses to be around $50K, then according to scientific financial calculation you may need at least $1.25 million in order to satisfy your expenses. Also depending on many factors, such as marker performance, life expectancy, you may not able to withdraw a large sum out of your investment. If you want your portfolio to last a life time, financial mathematics show that you may not withdraw more than 4.5% per annum; assuming your portfolio carries at least 60% in stocks.Financial advisor recommends retiree to invests in both short-term and long-term growth. One of the recommended investment strategies is to invest five year or more of living expenses in high quality bonds, some which will mature every year. For example, you may buy $50K worth of 1 year bond, $50K worth of 2 year bonds and so on. This strategy ensures that retirees will have income every year, plus access to the principle as each bond or group of bonds matures. You may then sell some stocks to repurchase another year worth of bonds set to mature in another 5 years. However, what happen if your portfolio suffers a bad year or two? In this case, you should hold off selling stocks; and if you have gains in any year, then you may invest in more years ahead. The rest of your portfolio can then be growth-oriented invested entirely in stocks.Another way of investment is to buy an immediate annuity with big enough payout to cover costs from health care insurance, taxes and living expenses.However you may want to wait until your second or third stage of your retirement before you purchase an annuity, because the payout is larger for an older buyer.

Many of you are in the red zone right before retirement, or you’ve already retired. No doubt your number one fear is running out of money in retirement. You’re part of a very large and growing demographic force: 35 million over age 65, 50 million drawing Social Security and 78 million baby boomers now turning 62. This means the future demand for everything used by the “retirement set” will increase, and “retirement prices” will rise dramatically. Many of you may have accumulated a retirement nest egg in a pension account, will draw a company pension and/or have other savings and investments earmarked for retirement. Where should you keep your retirement money?

If you’re keeping up with economic and financial developments, here’s what you’re seeing: sub-prime credit meltdown that has destroyed housing and is now spilling over into automobile debt and credit cards; highly volatile stock and bond markets; a weak dollar fueling higher prices for oil and other goods; more unemployment and rising inflation; retail sales, consumer confidence and new jobs creation in sharp decline; drastic interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve to avoid a recession; a money giveaway stimulus package from Washington to prop up the lagging economy; widespread talk of recession and stagflation. These all add up to troubled economic times which should prompt you to review where you have your retirement money.

You’re told the stock market is the best long term, but “long term” has a different meaning in retirement. Didn’t the dot.com stock market meltdown in 2000-2002 send many retirees back to work and prevent others from retiring? Aren’t the current inflation-adjusted stock market indexes below their previous peaks? Regardless, the loud voices of Wall Street and investment companies are advising you to buy now at bargain prices. Are the markets headed higher or is their advice self-serving? Who can forecast the economy or the stock market?

If the stock market craters as it did in 2000-02 and 1973-74, and you lose some of your retirement money, how will you replace it? Since there will be no second chance, I encourage you to think carefully before you commit your money. If you’ve been told that you’ll do just fine over the longer run (generally meaning ten years), make sure you can wait this long for a market rebound. Also remember that a rebound is not certain!

What about fixed rate places like government bonds, bank CDs and money market accounts? These are rock-solid safe unless your greatest fear is outliving your money. Since current fixed rates are lower than inflation, you’ll be losing purchasing power with these choices. The potential loss of purchasing power will only add to the risk of outliving your money. What about real estate, collectibles and non-market investments? These are not only risky but generally illiquid. Before committing your retirement money, ask yourself this question: “How will I handle the worse case outcome?”

There is one savings place that offers an “opportunity” to make an above-market rate of return without the risk of loss if held to term. It is guaranteed by some of the world’s oldest, strongest and largest financial companies. The rate of return is determined by stock/bond market indexes with owners sharing in the upside potential but avoiding downside losses. The worse case outcome is a guaranteed positive rate of return. The earned interest is income tax deferred until actually withdrawn and there is no mandatory age when the money must be used. Additionally, it can be turned into a guaranteed lifetime income that can be started, stopped and stored. What’s more, it offers penalty-free partial liquidity for emergencies and bypasses probate if the owner names a beneficiary. It can be opened for a small or a large amount, and sometimes more money can be added later. There is no law which limits the amount of money that can be placed in it. It is truly a safe place to keep retirement money.

It is maligned by Wall Street and bankers because it competes with their products. The financial press doesn’t like it either – primarily because they are uninformed, misinformed or just plain biased. I’m talking about fixed index-linked annuities that are offered by insurance companies: the same companies that insure your home, live, health, business and other valuable assets. The worse case outcome is a positive, albeit small, rate of return if held to maturity, but there is an opportunity to do much better. Fixed index-linked annuities are not for everyone, but you need to consider them as one of your safe options for retirement money. Where are you keeping your retirement money in today’s uncertain and troubled economic climate? If in risky places, now is a great time to review your options.Shelby J. Smith, Ph.D.

March 2008

Learn about safe money places – check out the Retirement Pros website http://www.theretirementpros.com/ I’m also doing free monthly video seminars online sign up at: http://www.theretirementpros.com/Tele-Seminar-MRM.php

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