Great Life Investing

Crystal McMahon, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™
Great Life Investing

Investing

OUR SERVICES

Investing In Stocks, ETFs, Mutual Funds and Bonds

financial planning investing in stocks

Risk & Reward

Investing in the stock market can be a bit like going to the casino, the longer the odds, the more you can lose or the more you can win. With that being said, investing is much more than randomly throwing the dice. How you balance risk and potential growth (reward) in your investments can make the difference between being comfortable with what you own, or worrying about how much money you might lose. 

portfolio

What is a Portfolio?

The investment industry is full of industry jargon, and one word that’s thrown around often is “Portfolio” – what is that?  A portfolio is the word used to describe all of your investments as one group, whether you own stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs or other investments. Tracking how your portfolio is performing as a whole, is as important as tracking the individual investments. Building a well-diversified portfolio that’s invested in a mix of different investments can help you maintain your investments when the markets goes through a volatile state.   

 
investing

Diversification

It’s important that your investment portfolio includes a blend of investments that can provide ‘ballast’ (reduced risk) to your portfolio. It’s equally as important that you own a variety of higher-risk investments that have the potential to grow more over time.  

A diversified portfolio has the potential to give you more consistent returns over time, with a more tolerable amount of risk. 

Whether you own stocks, mutual funds, ETFs (exchange-traded funds) or bonds, the way you diversify your portfolio can be even more important than what individual investments you own. 

investments

Are You Paying Hidden Fees?

Do you know if there are hidden fees in your investments?  Over the past couple of years we’ve been seeing more “funds of funds” with layers of fees at each level of management. We recently reviewed some workplace retire accounts, and we noticed they had total fees that were higher than 2%. 

It’s important the amount of fees you’re paying, because high fees will reduce how much your nest egg can grow over time.  

*If your plan at work has a self-directed IRA option available, we can help you manage those funds, and we may even be able to lower your investment costs with this option. 

Contact us to find out more.

financial planner

What's the Difference between a Broker and Financial Planner?

As a fee-based Fiduciary firm, we’re not only required to put your interests first, we’ve really aligned our goals with yours – our goal is to help you grow your nest egg over time.  We don’t earn more by making a lot of trades in your account to generate a lot of commissions, we earn a bit more when your investments grow more. 

It’s as simple as that.  

investing

Fitting Your Investments to Your Personality & Preferences

One of the challenges we see often with retail investors, is that they don’t know much about what companies they own investments in, or they own an investment that makes them uncomfortable because it doesn’t align with their ethical or social values.  

Although our primary goal is to structure your portfolio to help you achieve the goals in your financial plan, we also give weight to the social and environmental impacts of what investments we recommend.

Schedule Your 30-Minute Complimentary Investment Review

Click below, or call us at: 253.858.2427

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