That's Why We're Here

At TAAG, we work only with individuals and their families, so we can focus on getting to know each of our clients well.  While we manage your investments and provide financial planning, we can also help in other ways you may not be aware. 

   

I recently met with a client, her son, and her son’s partner to help them with their budget planning.  They had just purchased a home and were having difficulty adjusting their spending and tracking how they were doing.  We provided help with ideas, resources and ways to track their expenses that were not so burdensome.  My client contacted me later to let me know her son was happier and was more engaged in the on-going financial discussions, something that made HER happier.  

Another client is having health issues, and needed assistance filing for disability retirement benefits.  We helped complete the application request and coordinated the paperwork between her employer, her physicians, and the retirement plan administrator.  With our paperless filing system we have copies of all the documents in case anything is needed later.

Chip has been meeting with the second generation owners of a family-owned business, helping their estate planning attorney map out a plan to take care of their children and transition the company if something happens to them today, while planning for their continued growth into the future. 

Chris has been working with P&G employees that have been referred to us in the recent downsizing, helping them determine if they should take early retirement offers.  She’s also been working with current retirees designing option exercise plans, helping them exercise their options, and diversifying their portfolios afterward. 

During the year, we hold planning meetings with our clients and their CPAs, report investment activity, and consult with them before creating gains when given permission.  We have relationships with a variety of CPA firms, and when a client needs a CPA, we help match them to the best firm based on the complexity of the client’s situation, the specialization of the CPA and cost considerations.  We feel it is in your best interest to have an independent CPA, versus one employed by TAAG, so we can each specialize in what we do best and provide independent oversight of each other’s work.  We provide the same assistance with finding and working with attorneys.

So if you are struggling with a decision or you have a financial issue that’s causing you stress, call us.   

That’s why we’re here. 

Jeannette A. Jones, CPA, CFP®

jjones@taaginc.com

www.taaginc.com

Articles of Interest

There have been several articles of late that have grabbed our attention or garnered significant national press that we thought we would take the time to share this week.  Please see a brief intro to each and a link to access below . . .

Why I am Leaving Goldman Sachs
Now former Goldman Sachs employee Greg Smith wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times last week on how watching clients' interests being routinely and systematically ignored for the betterment of the firm led to him feeling like the only ethical option was to resign.  The piece has been much publicized as an indictment against Goldman and the entire wirehouse business model in general.

Really Big Claims Based on Too Little Data
TAAG Blog favorite Carl Richards posted this New York Times Bucks blog recently.  Carl takes on the dangers of looking at data over the short term and building conclusions based upon not enough information.  He also does an excellent job of explaining why, ultimately, the data supports a low cost, globally diverse portfolio over finding the best fund manager du jour every time.

The Real Cost of Paper Savings Bonds
This was a post from a guest blogger to the FPA All Things Financial Planning Blog that Chip contirbutes to monthly on the potential risks of hanging onto physical, paper savings bonds and the electronic deposit program the Treasury has established to make tracking and redeeming your bonds safe and simple. 

Have a great week!

The Asset Advisory Group
Website / E-mail

Stop the Madness!

This week begins March Madness.  Friends, families and co-workers have begun selecting their picks for the 2012 NCAA Basketball Tournament.  As I contemplated my brackets, I realized that the selection process I was using to get to my winning team is similar to the process many people use when selecting investments. 

First, there’s usually a hometown bias.  This may be geographical or the team that is your alma mater.  I attended both Indiana University and the University of Cincinnati.  My attachment to these schools as well as my familiarity with their basketball programs typically leads to me advancing them farther in my tournament brackets than they often should go. 

This is not unlike buying stock from a company in which you have ties.  Oftentimes, I see clients that not only hold their company stock in their retirement plan, but they also purchase additional shares of the same company in an outside account as well.  It is also commonplace to see a new client’s portfolio that has a large weighting in local companies such as P&G, GE, Cinergy and Kroger.  These companies are familiar which can give an investor the false impression that this also means they are a safer.

Next is the equivalent of Morningstar’s star ratings.  Each team in the NCAA tournament is given a seed, ranking them in their region based on their past record and strength of opponents they’ve faced.  If you have not followed basketball all year, it’s easy to fall into the pattern of picking teams with a higher seed because they seem more likely to succeed.

Many investors chose mutual funds that have outperformed their peers in the past because they have a higher star rating.  Unfortunately, this does not guarantee the same results going forward.  This is similar to the NCAA tournament.  Not many people probably picked VCU to go to the Final Four last year or George Mason in 2006.  Both teams were 11 seeds.  In fact, I had to refresh my memory to what VCU stands for – Virginia Commonwealth University.

Whether you have the proclivity to pick stocks, mutual funds or basketball teams, keep in mind a saying from sportscaster Dick Vitale that “Anything can happen, baby.”  I wouldn’t want to invest my savings using a methodology similar to tournament betting – would you?  

Christine L. Carleton, CFP®
clcarleton@taaginc.com
http://www.taaginc.com/

The Games are Coming

On March 1^st, tickets went on sale for an event many of you have likely been hearing about for some time, the 2012 World Choir Games.  The Games, billed as the Olympics of choral music, will be held in Cincinnati on July 4 – July 14, 2012.  The event will be the largest international event, arts event and, indeed, one of the largest events of any kind in the city’s history.  An estimated 200,000 visitors will come to town from as many as 70 countries to watch up to 20,000 participants perform and compete in 23 different categories of choral music.  Downtown will be transformed into a mini-Olympic village and a wide array of music, languages and culture will fill our streets.  It promises to be an incredible event and opportunity for the region.  For a great look at what the Games are all about, check out this short video.

To break down the numbers a little further, the UC Economics Center estimates that the economic impact to the area will reach $73.5 million, primarily stemming from visitors eating, drinking, sightseeing and booking more than 40,000 hotel nights, the most ever for a single event.

Cincinnati is the first city in North America to host the event which is held every two years.  It was selected due to an outstanding effort by local officials and for its rich cultural and musical heritage, the quality of its arts venues and the “walkability” of the city from major hotels to most of the choral venues.

I was fortunate enough to become involved with the Games as part of my participation in the 2011 class of C-Change, the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce’s Development program for emerging leaders.  Part of my year was spent working in a small group focused on developing a speaker’s bureau charged with going out to various community groups and professional organizations and speaking on all that the Games will bring to the region.  That work has continued into this year and we are as busy as ever filling requests from a wide array of interested groups.

While it is certain to be a wonderful few weeks, it can’t be done alone.  More than 4,000 volunteers are expected to be needed to fill a dizzying number of assignments.  More information on those opportunities can be found here.

If volunteering isn’t feasible, but you would like to know more about the concerts, event schedules and how to buy tickets, that information can be found here.  Many of the concerts will be free and there will even be opening and closing ceremonies, which promise to be a prime attraction. 

While trying to avoid this being too much of a sales pitch, I thought it was important to share some of the details surrounding this event with our clients, the trusted professionals we work with, and other readers as many have heard about the Games, but are not fully familiar with the scope of what is coming to town in July.

I strongly encourage all of you to get involved in this once in a lifetime event.  Try and find some time to volunteer, attend one of the many concerts, or just make a point to visit the downtown area during the Games.  For those clients of ours that are out of town and have been looking for an excuse to come back and see friends or family, this just might be the perfect excuse.

Have a great week!

Chip Workman, CFP®
cworkman@taaginc.com
http://www.taaginc.com