What You Need to Know about Your Investment Plan
It is important to be able to answer all of these questions to your own satisfaction. The more that you are aware of your own motivations and desires the more you will be able to communicate this to your investment advisor and make wise investment choices. Use this Questionnaire to determine if your current plan is effective.
Where are you now?
- How much do you pay annually in direct and hidden investing costs?
- Are the returns you have been receiving good or bad?
- Are the risks you are taking too little, too much or just right?
- What services do you really want and need?
- Is your advisor providing more or less than what you want or need?
- Are the costs fair for what you receive?
- How can you verify that your answers to these questions are correct?
Where are you going?
- Why are you investing?
- What are you trying to accomplish? What is your investment objective?
- How much capital must you accumulate to realize your financial objective?
- What capital resources do you have available (now and in the future) to dedicate to your investment objective?
- How much time do you have to meet your objective?
- What is a reasonable rate of return to expect from your investments?
- Is this a realistic objective considering the available capital and time?
How will you get there?
- Do you have a written, well thought-out, cost-effective and realistic investment plan?
- Is your plan customized to reflect your personal goals, risk tolerance and financial situation?
- Have you and your advisor gone over the plan together so that you each understand your separate roles and responsibilities?
- Do you know how the plan works well enough to be able to stay with the plan during difficult market conditions?
Are you getting there?
- What benchmarks will you use to determine how well your plan is working?
- What will you use to measure progress toward your objective?
If you would like assistance in answering any of these questions, or if you would like a review of your investment program, please contact: Kent@quacera.com.