Investing

Compare Your Company’s 401(k) Retirement Plan

by Flexo on May 21, 2009

While researching companies for possible career moves — an occasional hobby of mine before all of my extracurricular time was spent working on Consumerism Commentary — it has been difficult to find reliable information about one of the biggest benefits companies can offer, the 401(k) retirement plan. As an outsider to the company, you cannot access juicy benefits information. You can find out whether a company offers a 401(k), but some plans are decidedly worse than others.

The information I’d like to see available includes a list of available investment options. If my 401(k) contributions are locked into only expensive managed mutual funds, I would prefer to know this before applying for a position. No company match? That’s a deal-breaker. If the company requires an excessive portion of the contributions to be invested in company stock without a reasonable choice to sell, I would have doubts about the company’s future.

The 401(k) may not be the biggest driver in the decision to apply for or accept a position at a company, but this is an example where more information results in more informed applicants and a better chance of finding a mutually-beneficial employment match.

BrightScope is one website that approaches the kind of functionality I am searching for. It allows each visitor to provide limited information about his or her company’s 401(k) plan in order to develop a variety of ratings. Thanks to other employees who have uploaded plan information, BrightScope was able to evaluate my employer. The company I work for scores a 72 overall out of 100, better than average for my industry and only a few points away from the highest score.

In addition to the overall rating, BrightScope evaluates plan cost (like expense ratios and fees), company generosity (quality of the employer match), and investment menu quality.

How does your company’s 401(k) plan stack up against the competition?

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Market Timing: You’re Doing it Wrong

by Flexo on May 7, 2009

A recent question-and-answer article from Money Magazine illustrates the problem with timing the market. While making money in the stock market is as “simple” as buying low and selling high, emotional reactions to the market often prevent that from being a feasible strategy. The question comes from an individual close to retirement, Heidi. She lost several thousand dollars of value in her 401(k) and reacted by selling her equities and keeping the cash in her retirement account.

By the time you lose a good portion of your investment — Heidi doesn’t specify the percentage of loss she experienced — it’s too late. It’s common and expected to sell in a panic, scared to lose more value. A market downturn and quarterly statement after quarterly statement with decreasing bottom lines turn someone who thought they were immune to market swings, a risk taken to increase the chance of higher returns, into a conservative investor. And the reaction comes at the long time.

Invariably, people now scared of the stock market will wait for “positive signs” before diving back into the pool. One such positive sign is a sustained market rebound. But once again, if you wait and react to the positive rebound, you’ve missed the chance to earn the best returns — the kind that drive the statistics that claim the stock market retuns 8% over the very long term. If you are not in the stock market when the market rebounds, and wait until the rest of the world starts buying stocks again, you won’t experience the increase that makes the stock market famous.

With this in mind, it’s better not to try to time the market and react to short-term market conditions. Stay invested, but maintain (and rebalance) an asset allocation that makes sense for your future financial needs. If you need your money to last another three decades, even if you’re starting retiremement and expect to live longer, you may need the boost that the stock market can provide over those 30 years, but it doesn’t hurt to keep a portion of your portfolio — what you will need in the first ten years of retirement, for example — in something less risky.

I’m not a financial adviser, and these thoughts are just based on my observations.

The trouble with market timing, Walter Updegrave, Money Magazine, May 7, 2009.

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Schwab Brokerage Lowers Expense Ratios, Beats Vanguard

by Flexo on May 6, 2009

Here is some good news for investors. Schwab, competing for investment business with other low-cost mutual fund operations like Vanguard, Fidelity, and TIAA-Cref, has lowered the expenses on a number of their mutual funds.

The Schwab S&P 500 Index Fund (SWPIX), which competes directly with the Vanguard S&P 500 Index Funds (VFINX), now sports a net expense ratio of 0.09%, compared with Vanguard’s 0.16% (or 0.15% or 0.18%, depending on who you ask). Additionally, the minimum investment at Schwab is only $100. You will need $3,000 to open an account at Vanguard. Schwab’s Total Stock Market Index Fund (SWTSX) has also been reduced to 0.09%, which is lower than Vanguard’s expense ratio for the equivalent VTSMX of 0.16%.

Theoretically, the performance of an index fund “managed” by one company before fees should be identical to the returns provided by an equivalent fund “managed” elsewhere. With index funds, the fees matter because everything else is theoretically equal; lower expenses could save you many thousands of dollars over long stretches of time. With this news, I may consider at least investing new money with Schwab, and I will possibly consider moving some funds from Vanguard to Schwab.

I should point out that if you qualify for Vanguard’s Admiral Shares, your expense ratios will be lower than Schwab’s new rates. You need to have $100,000 in one mutual fund (or $50,000 in one fund and a ten-year history with that fund) to qualify.

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When Large Institutions Hoard Cash, Start Investing

by Flexo on April 28, 2009

Rather than lending and investing, banks are holding onto large amounts of cash. For large companies, particularly companies whose stocks trade publicly, now is a good time to keep cash on hand for excess liquidity and to look strong for investors and analysts. The liquidity allows the bank to be ready to strike when they believe it’s time to invest their own assets. And they will invest, it’s only a matter of time.

Even though I usually stay away from predicting shorter-term stock market performance, I can safely say that when large financial institutions begin lending and investing en masse, the stock market will go up. So now, before the banks make their moves, it might be a good time to move some of your excess cash into equities. The economic environment right now, in the midst of a recession, might eventually prove to be a once-in-a-generation opportunity for investing once we are far enough away to view the longer-term trends and place day-to-day experiences in perspective.

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Reader Question: How Can My Money Earn More for Me?

by Flexo on April 24, 2009

A reader and friend is looking for some basic financial advice. It just so happens that April is National Financial Literacy Month, so the timing is perfect because I am in a sharing mood. I get to share his situation and my suggestions with Consumerism Commentary readers, and readers have the option of offering their own thoughts.

I’m neither a financial adviser nor a financial planner, but I thought I could help by sharing my philosophy, my approach, and what will, I hope, pay off for me in the long run. Here is a little about my friend: He owns his own business and his wife is a public high school teacher. They are both 33 years old, living in New Jersey. Right now, most of their money is in a high-yield online savings account. First, he asked me how he could earn more on that money and I suggested switching to a bank offering a higher interest rate like FNBO Direct and we touched on certificates of deposit, but he is looking for more.

So I asked him what his goals are and what kind of money we were talking about. He wants to save for retirement and for his child’s education, and he would like all his money to be earning more in general.

Here was most of my response. If you have anything to add or change, please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this article. Don’t consider this financial advice. If you take action on my suggestions, you do so at your own risk.

Email begins here:

For retirement, you should be putting some money into an Individual 401(k). Since you work for yourself, you don’t have an employer offering you a 401(k), so you can just set one up for yourself.

You can invest up to $16,500 in that account in 2009. The 401(k) is the best option for retirement if you don’t do anything else. You should only invest money in this account that you’re 98% sure you won’t need until you’re 59 1/2. You can borrow from it before then if you need to, but if you don’t pay yourself back, you’ll owe penalties. Since this is a long way off, you should choose a stock index fund like VTSMX.

If you invest in an index like VTSMX, you would have to change your allocation as you get close to retirement to move away from stocks and more towards bonds. Bonds have a lower return (over the long term — they can beat stocks over the short term) but are safer, stocks are riskier but can provide a higher return. A “lifecycle” or Target Retirement Fund changes the allocation between stocks and bonds automatically as you get older. So if you invest in a lifecycle fund now, it will be mostly stocks, but as you get older, it will gradually shift towards bonds. This will help you preserve your money and you’ll be less exposed to stock market crashes and recessions when you’re getting closer to making a withdrawal.

You might choose the Target Retirement 2040 Fund or if you want to be more aggressive (more risk, possibly higher return), you could choose the Target Retirement 2045 Fund.

I’m not sure what your wife’s options are, but she probably has a pension which will help out in retirement and she probably has an option for a retirement contribution plan such as a 403(b), basically a “non-profit” 401(k).

The next priority would be education for your daughter or any other future kids you decide to have. The most popular option here is a 529 Account. Again there are low-cost options with Vanguard. But if you’re pretty sure your kids will go to school in New Jersey, you can invest in a New Jersey state 529 plan because you’ll save on taxes. If you invest in a 529, you must withdraw the money for education expenses only. If you withdraw it for some other purpose, you’ll owe taxes.

The next priority would be everything else you want to save for. Make sure you have enough in an emergency fund (in a high-yield savings account like ING or FNBO Direct) to cover your expenses for a few months in case you’re not working and Ali loses her job. If your mortgage interest rate is high, you might want to pay that off faster because that will save you money down the road. Otherwise use that money to invest in a regular investment account. I would suggest stocks (VTSMX) even for your non-retirement investing because they’ve taken a beating recently, and while they might go down a little in the short term, they should recover nicely (unless the United States economy is fundamentally flawed, but I don’t think it is).

I’m suggesting Vanguard because they generally have the least expensive investment options. There are no account maintenance fees if you agree to email delivery of statements (rather than paper) and the funds’ expenses are lower than just about every other company. And low expenses means you keep more of your own money, which is good when you have lots of time for it to grow.

Most of Vanguard’s funds require an initial $3,000 investment. So when you set them up, you’d have to start with at least that much in your 401(k), your 529, and your regular investment account — that’s $3,000 initial investment (or more if you wish) in each of those. But after that you can set up automatic investments or just leave it alone for the rest of the year.

Don’t be seduced by investing directly in individual stocks. That’s like gambling. Stick to broad non-managed index funds like VTSMX because it will spread your risk around and it’s proven to beat stockpickers’ performance over the long term.

If you’ve maxed out your 401(k) and want to invest more for retirement, consider a Roth IRA and a SEP IRA.

End of email.

Do you agree or disagree with my suggestions? What did I leave out of this message?

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Has the Economic Collapse Changed the Rules of Investing?

by Flexo on March 23, 2009

Money Magazine published an article with the “7 new rules of financial security,” claiming that the recent economic collapse has changed the fundamentals that investors have relied upon for decades. The simultaneous meltdown of the stock, housing and credit markets resulted in a world in which investors must adjust their assumptions in order to succeed. Here is what the writers from Money Magazine have determined:

1. Risk isn’t about how much decline in value you can stomach, it’s about not missing important targets. When weighing the risks against the rewards of any particular investment, financial advisers generally ask about whether the investor is comfortable with losing 50% from one year to the next. Investors, realizing that risky investments are necessary in order to for money to grow, agree to volatile investments when the threat of decline seems unlikely, like when the stock market has had a few years of great performance.

The past few years has tried these investors who claimed to be able to deal with a short-term decline, and many have bowed out of the stock market entirely. Money’s “new rule” is just a different way of asking the same question, without taking emotions into account. If you want to hit your target, you need to take on the risk appropriate to reach your goal. Getting scared in a turbulent market is fine as long as it doesn’t make you question your tenacity.

2. Cash is for more than just typical emergency funds, you should have enough to cover “asset emergencies.” In the economy before last year, the typical recommendation was that you should use keep three to six months’ worth of expenses in an easily-accessible savings account, but not much more. Any extra cash should be invested to “let your money work harder for you.” According to Money Magazine, you should keep enough cash to cover asset emergencies. For example, if you are counting on a 529 education investment account to provide for your child’s education, if he or she attends college in a down market, you could find yourself with not as much money available for tuition as you had planned.

If you are effectively allocating your invested assets depending on your target date for withdrawal there is no danger in the above example. You might include stocks in your 529 when college is eighteen years away, but as freshman year approaches, the account should reflect more conservative investments. Don’t rely on the all-in-one “target date mutual funds” to automatically allocate your investment between stocks and other investments at percentages that make sense; it will take some effort by the investor to monitor.

3. In addition to using your time horizon to determine the percentage of stocks in your portfolio, consider your earnings potential. Your “human capital” should be considered part of your asset allocation strategy. If your ability to earn income is strong, you can afford to take risk with your assets. Money Magazine offers the example of a tenured professor who is in line for receiving a pension, who can invest aggressively in stocks with their retirement portfolio, and a commission-based mortgage broker, who may want to secure a safer retirement.

4. Borrow cautiously rather than using debt (leverage) to seek higher returns. A number of gurus strongly pushed the idea of leverage — using debt to finance investments. It was a shaky theory at that time, and now we’ve seen the results of over-leverage and over-speculation in the real estate market and in certain investments. This doesn’t seem like a new rule; it’s just a rule that not many people were following. Mortgages acquired with no money down provide a nice return when house prices increase well beyond inflation, but historically and on average, real estate performs only marginally better than inflation. In order to achieve that average, the years of skyrocketing prices need to balance with years of plummeting prices.

5. Your home won’t make you rich. Again, I thought this was an old rule that was simply ignored for a few years during the real estate boom. I can’t tell you how many people who previously had never invested in anything were excited to tell me, after buying their overpriced house, that they would be fine and home values never decline. Others told me that real estate earns more than 10% year after year on average. Neither of these statements are true. It’s possible that my acquaintances who justified their purchases to me with short-term historical data ended up earning money on their house, “supporting” these statements. Anything is possible. But long-term growth in the house in which you live isn’t as guaranteed as people seemed to think.

Even if the house you live in does skyrocket in value, you normally can’t take advantage of the increase without selling your house and moving to a location where you can find a house of significantly lower value.

6. You need more diversification than you think in order to lower your risk. My retirement portfolio is diversified. I have a large-cap stock fund, a mid-cap stock fund, a small-cap stock fund, an international stock fund, a commercial real estate (REIT) fund, and company stock. Actually, that’s not diversified at all. Money Magazine offers stocks from emerging markets, domestic bonds, foreign bonds, and even junk bonds as part as a fully diversified portfolio. I have no bonds because I followed the common advice that those who have a long enough time frame should invest exclusively in stocks and bonds up to 5% of the portfolio won’t reduce risk to make the loss of potential growth worthwhile.

7. Don’t focus on retiring early. Money Magazine points out that delaying retirement by just one year may increase your annual income in retirement by 9%. That’s a nice raise. Someone who retired early in 2007 with a sizable retirement fund in stocks, expecting to live another 25 or 30 years — a decent time horizon for remaining in stocks under the “old rules” — have likely found today that their nest egg won’t be providing the same amount of income in the near future. Could the economic collapse have been predicted when this hypothetical individual retired in 2007? Possibly, but the threat of a stock market decline might not have been enough to convince a retiree to change asset allocation.

Do you agree with Money Magazine? Have the rules of investing changed due to the global economic crisis?

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How to Qualify for Vanguard Admiral Shares

by Flexo on March 21, 2009

Whether right or wrong, having more money opens more doors and opportunities. Just look at the way casino hotels operate. If you are a high roller, the casino will shower you with free nights in the penthouse suite, free meals, and who knows what other perks unavailable to those of us without the cash to throw around. But it’s not just casinos who want to make the biggest customers happy.

Vanguard, a highly recommended low-cost brokerage, takes a similar approach. High rollers receive a special perk, and it’s a very valuable special perk, worth potentially tens or hundres of thousands of dollars over a lifetime. Certain customers qualify for half-price discounts. Those who belong in this special class have access to mutual funds with lower expense ratios. The more money you have, the more you are allowed to keep, and that’s more of your own money working for you through compounded returns.

This concept is the opposite of what a young investor wanting to save money might like. But investment companies, even Vanguard, are not in business to be charitable. They need to attract big clients.

So if you have at least $100,000 in a single account invested in a single mutual fund at Vanguard, you will qualify for the company’s “Admiral Shares” for that mutual fund. Vanguard has also instituted a policy to reward loyalty. If you have a single account invested in a single mutual fund with a balance of only $50,000, but you’ve owned that fund for over ten years and use Vanguard’s online account access tools, they will accept you into that fund’s Admiral Shares club without having to reach $100,000.

Keep in mind that if you have a new account at Vanguard with $50,000 in a Roth IRA invested in VTSMX and $50,000 in a regular taxable investment account invested in VTSMX, you still don’t qualify. Each account type and fund combination needs to be valued at least $100,000 (or $50,000 if the other conditions apply) for Vanguard to convert your shares to Admiral class.

Here are the Admiral Shares benefits as of today, the equivalent of a comped penthouse suite for the rest of your life:

For the S&P 500 index fund, your expense ratio will be reduced from 0.15% to 0.07%.
For the balanced index fund, your expense ratio will be reduced from 0.19% to 0.10%.
For the growth and income fund, your expense ratio will be reduced from 0.37% to 0.23%.
For the inflation-protected securities fund, your expense ratio will be reduced from 0.20% to 0.11%.
For the large-cap index fund, your expense ratio will be reduced from 0.20% to 0.08%.
For the total stock market index fund, your expense ratio will be reduced from 0.15% to 0.07%.

These are just a few examples of how Vanguard rewards its wealthier customers with lower fees.

If you do qualify in any of your Vanguard account types, the brokerage will automatically convert your shares to Admiral class on a quarterly basis. But if your fund’s balance later dips below the $100,000 (or $50,000) minimum, you will be given a chance to invest new money to make up the difference or your shares will be reclassified to the higher-cost Investor Shares.

The Investor Shares have many of the lowest expenses available in the market place, so small-time investors like me are still getting a reasonably decent deal. Casinos comp small-time players occasionally, too.

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Three of the Largest Closed Hedge Funds are “Madoff Feeder Funds”

by Flexo on March 19, 2009