Page 30 - Leisure Living Magazine June 2019

A Cool Spring And
A Hot Stock Market
By Christopher McIntire, President, McIntire Retirement Services www.mcintireretirementservices.com
Happy early summer folks!
We’ve had a crazy wet and cool spring so far. Thankfully, we have enjoyed a great start to the markets through the first quarter of 2019. The Federal Reserve has indicated a wait and see approach to the interest rate increases that were dominant in 2018, with four .25% rate increases. Rate increases impact growth as the cost of bor- rowing goes up and cuts into corporate profits.
Inflation has remained rather tame and that has allowed the Federal Reserve to slow the rate increases in 2019, so far. Investors have enjoyed this and put more money into stocks, driving up prices and several record highs have occurred so far this year. Obviously, this is no guarantee of things to come for the remainder of the year and volatility can appear suddenly.
Investors could take some gains off the table and reposition those gains into a more conser- vative type of investment and use that strategy going forward to “harvest profits”. It’s not always what you make versus what you keep that really matters in retirement for most investors. Keep- ing your stock (equity)/bond percentages in pro- portion to your equity risk tolerance means re- balancing, typically quarterly, to maintain those holdings in the desired allocations.
With 2018 having gone down as the year with more negative asset classes than ever before, it may have served as a wake-up call for investors that were overconfident in equity prices. Once again, it is prudent to maintain your holdings in the correction proportion.
Safe money is also very important for those nearing or entering retirement. When assets that have market type risk suffer from negative move- ments, you can switch your income to the safe money you hold and relieve pressure on invest- ments that have lost value. We call this hedging against “sequence risk”. The risk is that when you draw money off assets distressed, you may be in- creasing the risk of depleting those assets much quicker than desired.
The amount of safe money needed depends on how much income you get from Pensions and Social Security to meet your basic living expens- es. The lesser the amount from those guaranteed sources, the more need for safe money just in case the markets stay in a negative pattern longer than we have been used to in recent memory.
I hope these words of wisdom were helpful to you and that you all enjoy a safe and warm sum- mer!
Investment advisory services offered through Brookstone Capital Management, LLC. (BCM), a Registered Investment Advisor. BCM and McIntire Retirement Services are independent of each other. Insurance services also offered by representatives of McIntire Retirement Services. Insurance services are offered by representatives of McIntire Retire- ment Services.
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Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just starting out in the shooting sports, CMP welcomes you to the Camp Perry Joint Training Site just six miles west of Port Clinton on Route 2.
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Outdoor pistol and highpower rifle matches run from July 8 to August 9. Families, Friends & Competitors are welcome!
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30 |LeisureLiving June 2019
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