I wrote this article on September 20, 2011 on my Golden Valley Patch Blog.
I met with a retired investor late last week. He retired from a large local Minnesota company about two years ago and had “rolled over” his company 401(k) account into a self-directed IRA.
Early in the conversation I sensed his frustration. I found out this gentleman spends quite a bit of his time browsing the Internet and reading articles about how to best manage his retirement assets.
He told me about the information he had read from several “financial experts” recently. The most common advice he found for current 401(k) plan participants or soon-to-be-retired investors was to “spend less, save more, and work longer” in preparation for retirement.
He asked me point blank, “What kind of investment advice is that?
I had no good answer for him. All I could tell him was that he was right about the fact that his financial situation needed more detailed and specific investment advice than he had found on the Internet.
This man’s specific investment advice needs were far more complicated than any general investment advice found on the Internet or on a financial news TV station. He needed answers to investment management questions that would help him make better investment decisions on his retirement money now.
For the last several years, the stock market has had no steady growth and interest rates have continually declined. Investors have not been able to “grow” their retirement plan assets. And at the same time, their current “income” on those assets has declined.
Many company retirement plan rollover investors struggle to find the right combination of preserving the retirement asset that they have and growing those assets for the future. Recently retired investors share these same frustrations.
Does this situation sound at all familiar to you?
Ric Lager
Lager & Company, Inc.
