Hosts: Harry Stadelmayer, CFP®, AIF® and Joe Bert, CFP®, AIF®
Central Florida oldest and largest independent firm of certified financial planning professionals is the Certified Financial Group in Altamonte Springs. With us this morning we have two of the twelve certified financial planning professionals with the Certified Financial Group. That being Joe Bert and Harry Stadelmayer is back with us. Good morning, gentleman.
Good morning.
Good morning Kurt. How is things going.
A little chilly.
A little bit.
Chilly.
It’s beautiful out.
You think so?
Nice to — did you see the rain this week?
You like golfing in this kind of weather?
Oh yeah this is <Background Noise>
It is cold weather.
Yeah.
My threshold is 50. Below 50. Of course you know when I lived up north 50 was shorts. Shorts and t-shirts were out.
I hear you, I agree.
They were out there this morning when I passed them on the course. But Joe let everybody know who may be knew to this program what do you take calls about?
Harry and I are here to help you clear up that financial fog as we like to say. Unfortunately when we go through life we try some of this and try some of that financially and hoping that it all comes together at the right now, because there is going to come a point in time when the paychecks stop. When the paychecks stop we have Social Security coming in and if you haven’t saved and invested for your financial future that’s what you’ll be living on. Unfortunately living on Social Security today is living beneath the poverty level. As we say in our ads that we run here on t.v. they don’t teach us about this stuff in school. We try some of this and try some of that as I said and wake up to find we have a collection of financial accidents. So we are here, it’s kind of like the body shop if you will, repair those financial accidents and answer any questions that you might have regarding the decisions that you might be facing, and decisions that you have to make to try to achieve long-term financial security. Monday through Friday our 12 CFP professionals do this for a fee but on Saturday morning we are free. So the good news for you if you have any questions about stocks, bonds, mutual funds, real estate, long-term health care, IRAs, annuities, reverse mortgages, life insurance, 401(k), all that and more we are here. There is nobody in line so all you have to do is pick up the phone and dial —
844-220-0965, 844-220-0965. You can also send us a text from your mobile device, just keep it kind of short. That texting number is 21232. You could also become part of the program, your voice can be heard, use the open mic. You will find that on the news 965 app. I’d be remise if I didn’t point out right at the beginning of the program we have the tournament chairman with us in the studio, of Arnold Palmers upcoming event in the studio. That being Harry Stadelmayer as well. Who use to be the paper boy for the event.
The donut boy.
How many years — from when you started donut boy, how many years ago.
23 or 24 years ago.
You were a volunteer.
Well you still are.
Still am, yeah.
Volunteer position.
But now he’s the chief <Inaudible>.
This will be my last time on air as tournament chairman.
Oh really?
That’s right.
You won’t be on again until after the tournament, which is my last hoorah.
Wow, we are very excited, the playing is going well.
When is the tournament coming up?
Week of March 14th. 14th through the 22nd.
So this is big.
Big annual event.
The Arnold Palmer invitational and we have ticket sales are hot and heavy. So we’ve got so many different packages if you want to go to ArnoldPalmerInvitational.com and come out and enjoy some great — hopefully great weather. We are praying for great weather.
The course is redone.
The course has been completely redone from a grass standpoint, not from a concourse standpoint. But we killed every blade of grass on the tees and the greens and the fairways. So it is beautiful out there. This rain this week helped. I can see the superintendent he was smiling. You can hear the grass grow. So it is a labor of love. I’ve enjoyed the 24-25 years, I’ve got a wonderful, wonderful board and staff and I’ve just kind of get to be at the top and kind of watch it all unfold. A little bit of work but it has been a great run. To be representing the king who walked into Orlando in the 60s and walked into a hospital in the 80s and said we can do better here Central Florida.
Here here.
Here we are.
Marvelous job.
Can I ask a personal question of you?
Sure.
Does the maestro of golf actually have a home that overlooks the <Inaudible> course.
Yes.
Well it is — yes — it is at Bay Hill, it over looks a big body of water.
Well I know I’ll never get an invite.
You sure?
Even though I’ve been following him since the black and white three channel days of television. Alright the number is 844-220-0965, 844-220-0965. Text us at 21232 if you’d like to speak with Harry Stadelmayer or Joe Bert the Oracle of Orlando. We are going to talk today among things the market today. Is it sending signals because yesterday I looked and wow.
Wam.
How about that Joe huh?
Nice finish for the month.
Wasn’t that —
300 plus <Background Noise>
Almost 400.
It went up 400 points?
Yep.
Last week we were talking about doom and gloom and despair on me.
No, no.
<Inaudible> short-term deal.
However, that’s the way many folks perceive it. We’ve been doing this a long time and you still get those calls from when the Dow starts dropping 1,500 that’s when people start going alright is this going to — I saw an article yesterday from Harry Dent, we know Harry Dent, we actually listened to Harry Dent in person here several times. He’s not talking about a Dow at seven or right —
I don’t know and I don’t care.
Exactly.
That’s exactly —
In fact I circulated something to you and all the planners internally yesterday about the doom and gloom forecasters that sell all this stuff, and what their track record has been. It is a very very very interesting article about how they capitalize on peoples fears and sell these newsletters for 49.95 a month and how wrong they are. But yet because fear is a major driver of people making decisions —
Major emotion.
Yes, it is how people — if I can just find that one safe place, this will guy tell me what I need to do and why I need to do it. It’s only going to cost me $50 a month. There is a whole tremendously large industry that capitalizes on fear.
The sad part is those that listened — we had a nice day Friday, who knows what Monday springs, next week the next month but as Joe said who cares. But for those folks that did make the commitment to maybe go to cash in their 401(k), now what do you do? So now you have another decision to make that may be wrong. So you may be zero for two. That’s why it is so important to just stay the course and know that the investments hopefully that you selected were quality, the plan was quality, follow the plan.
Lets talk to Chris on his cell phone. Good morning Chris.
Morning Chris.
Good morning guys how you doing?
Good thanks for the call, how can I help you?
Looking forward to seeing you guys out at Bay Hill this year.
Oh fantastic Chris. Have you been out before or no?
I have, I actually went last year.
Great.
I hope you had a great time.
Yeah, oh I did, yeah for Rory’s first time. It was something to see the way that guy strikes the ball is unreal. But I have a question with foreign currency. Right now I currently have a sizable chunk of money in a Canadian savings account, and with the way the Canadian dollar is right now I’m not even dreaming of bringing it over. But the account is at RBC and the way RBC works if you have an American account and a Canadian account and they are linked you could bring them back and forth whenever you please without any penalty. You just for the exchange rate. So my question is would it be possible, could I put my American money into that Canadian account and wait until the dollar evens out and kind of use that as an investment? The Canadian dollar right now is at least $0.70 to the dollar. It jumps up to $0.85-$0.90, now it’s a 20% return. I just didn’t know if that was something that would be attainable.
I think you could that. What you are doing is playing the currency game. That’s a decision that I can’t give any insight in, neither can Harry because we can’t predict the future of currencies. But you have to check with RBC if they’ll allow you to do that, I don’t know why they wouldn’t.
Okay.
You can probably —
I just didn’t know if there would be like from a government standpoint if I’d have to claim more money of that as taxable, would it make it worse <Inaudible> for the return. He was very confident that the Canadian dollar is going to bounce back.
Chris this wouldn’t represent a sizable portion of your total net worth would it?
No, no about 50%.
Woah. Well you sound like a <Inaudible> gambler.
Well I’m not talking about yeah — I mean I — if I bring it all over right now it is a huge hit. The money was actually came to me through inheritance over the course of the past couple of months and I’ve just been trying to — waiting for the right opportunity to bring it over. But with the exchange rate right now it is kind of a tough pill to swallow and take that big of a hit.
You are asking me a question that I have not been asked in the past. I don’t know what the tax treatment would be on currency gain. I imagine you’d have to pay taxes because this happens all the time. I just never have been asked the question. I’m going to do some research for you. If you can hang around the show here we’ll see if we can get an answer for you before the hour is gone.
Definitely, definitely.
I’m not sure as well if <Background Noise> I know in the states inheritance is taxable. But if it is deposited into Canadian funds and I bring it over how do they know where I got it. Is that taxed as inheritance.
Well — I have no idea.
Now a days it is tracked.
No. I don’t think so. I don’t think you have a problem there but I don’t know what the income tax consequences are on a gain. I’m sure there are some but I don’t — I can’t quote it chapter and verse off the top of my head. I’ll try to find an answer for you before the hour is over.
Okay. Alright. Thanks guys. Have a great weekend.
Thanks for the call.
You could join us as well at 844-220-0965. Lets talk to Tracy at Enterprise and then we’ll go to Dave Wall in the news center for more on the Iowa caucuses. Hi Tracy.
Good morning sir how are you today?
Alright.
Hi Tracy.
I actually have one quick question. What is the best source to learn about becoming an investor in the market? I know very little.
Repeat your question please Tracy.
The best source that I can start learning about investing and how the market works?
So you are looking for a course or a book or a direction on —
Something like that.
Some knowledge as to what it takes to be an investor. <Inaudible> well what does investor mean to you? I think that’s where we need to start Tracy. What does investor mean to you? What does that mean?
Well I want to take a couple of thousand dollars and start investing it and trying to get it to grow on one side. On another side I have a 401(k) that I want to rollover into a targeted retirement fund as well.
Okay.
First of all lets answer the basic question. This is going to be very straightforward, this is not a trick question. You are probably going to ask why is this guy asking this question. Why do we want to invest, why do people even consider investing? What are you after to make an investment? What do you want to have happen?
Long term growth and money for retirement.
Bingo. Okay.
Good answer.
That’s why we invest. Investing says okay I have these dollars and I want to get them to grow for the future, whatever it might be. Educating your kids, buying a home, retirement which is the number one reason today. But we want to get our dollars to grow. Okay so once we have that figured out where do we put our money. What are the basic choices that you and I and everybody listening out there has to invest our money. So lets talk about where you can put your money. Work with me here Tracy because I’m trying to educate our listeners as well. This is very very basic stuff but people go out and make investments and have no reason why they are doing it. So I’m trying to educate here. So why, why do we invest, where can we invest our money. What kind of things?
Is that a question for me?
That’s a question for you?
Oh I’m sorry. Honestly I haven’t the slightest idea, I know very little about the market other than that seems like the place to be.
Okay so when you say the market you are talking about stocks and in some cases bonds. Those are two kinds of investments. You could also invest in a number of other things. You could invest in real estate, you could invest in commercial properties which is real estate, raw land which is real estate. You can invest in commodities, you can invest in precious metals, you can invest in art, you can invest in antique cars, you can invest in gold coins, <Inaudible> coins, rare stamps. You can invest in virtually anything. Now the question is — even beanie babies. I mean
Remember when beanie babies — remember the beanie baby run? Everybody is investing in beanie babies and the market fell out of it. But that was an investment to some people. So what you are after is okay where can I put my money to make my money grow? So when I look at all those things. First of all by the way the thing to invest in is yourself. Get yourself an education and if you can — if you have your own business investing in yourself is the best thing you can do. But most people don’t have the ability to do that so you have to go on the outside of things I just mentioned. For the common — the common way for most people to get their money to grow is to invest in other peoples businesses. That’s what stocks are all about. You are investing in other peoples businesses. You hope that the investments that you make are — you make the right choice that those people will manage those companies well, to make that company grow. So this is what you are after. So that’s why most people — now what you don’t want to do is try to pick individual stocks. That is a recipe for disaster for most people. Because trying to pick individual stocks, most people don’t have the time, the temperament or the talent to be successful long-term.
Tracy we have a workshop on May 14th it is called Financial Basics for Life, it is a very basic one-on-one in the investing world that Gary Abley does, it’s on May 14th. You can go to our website, login. Then Joe also has a book by —
Mick Murray, A Simple Wealth, Inevitable Wealth. Give you some ideas about investing Tracy. But what you don’t want to do is pick individual stocks, use mutual funds, because then you are hiring a professional manager to do that for you. The question is which funds. There is a whole education you can get on that.
It’s an Ask the Experts weekend on News 965 WDBO and this is On the Money brought to you by Central Florida oldest and largest independent firm of certified financial planning professionals. Joe what are people calling and asking us about.
Once again Harry and I are here this morning to answer any questions that might be on your mind regarding your personal finances. Often times the calls are on decisions about stocks and bonds and mutual funds and real estate and long-term health care, IRAs, annuities, life insurance, all that and more. We are here and the good news for you. There is still two lines open. All you have to do is pick up the phone and dial —
844-220-0965, 844-220-0965. We have some texts to get to as well. You can text us at 21232, 21232. Lets talk to Paul in Orlando then we’ll go to Sebastian. Good morning Paul.
Hi Joe. If I establish a trust for my underage grandson will that affect him getting financial aid when he goes to college?
It depends on whether or not he — how much income he derives from that trust and whether or not he has access to those assets. If they are not — if he doesn’t have access to those assets they probably won’t be considered.
Okay but the trust wouldn’t be — I mean would establish it but it wouldn’t be paying him any money until he’s 30 years old.
Yeah, no, no, no. I would not think so.
In fact that’s the mistake many folks make. They’ll establish a trust then they’ll go through the expense of doing a trust and they won’t fund the trust. Now I understand in your situation there are assets for this child after he’s 30, but that would completely depend on how you funded the trust or if you fund the trust and if he had access.
It’s not available to him when you are applying for that financial aid.
Right.
I’m not an attorney but my guess is that it would not be counted.
The second question is the trust itself is a document but that document is just a non-registered type document. In other words this is a document between myself and the trustee who is going to be watching over it if I pass on. Is that correct?
That’s correct.
So it will just be the integrity of the trustee. Okay thank you so very much.
Your welcome Paul, thanks for the call.
That’s an important decision to make. That trustee is the — that trustee has a lot of power at death.
You could join us as well the number is 844-220-0965, 844-220-0965. Lets talk to Glen in beautiful Sebastian. I love Sebastian. I love Sebastian. Good morning Glen.
Good morning Glen.
Hey how are you?
Good.
Thanks for calling.
Good morning.
How can we help you?
I’m 65 and I have an IRA that is in stocks and I’m thinking about going to a fixed annuity.
Okay.
Putting like I’m thinking about putting 2/3 of it into the fixed annuity which you can draw 10% of it up to 10 years and then 10 years you can get the whole — whatever is in there back. It doesn’t lose any money. If you put it for <Inaudible> 7% sign up bonus, that if you and you are still allowed to take 10% a year. But if you take it all out or take any more than that than you forfeit the 7% that you start out with. Do you think that’s a good idea?
Glen how did you hear about this?
I went to one of those dinners for a financial planner and then I went and talked to him and I did discuss it with my accountant and he said that fixed annuities that you can’t lose any money in would be the only one that he would be comfortable with.
Sure. There is no question you won’t lose any money. The question is how much money will you make?
Well the idea — what they said — this particular plan is based on if the market goes up monthly, I would make up to 1.5% a month if it goes up over 1.5% each — I can only make 1.5 each month. If the market goes up 3% I make 1.5%.
So you are talking about — when you say market you are talking about the S&P fund.
Yeah. Yes. So when it goes up, then that’s the maximum. Then at the end of the year they calculate it all, if I’ve made money I make it, if the stock market loses money then I still keep whatever I’ve got in it.
Glen we have — over the course of the last six months done an extensive analysis within our company on what you are calling fixed indexed annuities. Because they are very popular. The reason they are popular is exactly for the reasons that you just described. You put your money in, you can’t lose, market goes up you gain, market goes down you don’t lose. So you like that. Everybody likes that, sounds great right?
Right.
That’s what — that’s the hook. The reality is is that all of the returns that you will receive are really based on what kind of returns the insurance company could generate from their own portfolios, which are constrained by what the state insurance departments allow them to invest in. The state insurance departments won’t allow the insurance companies to invest in stocks and bonds, or in stocks I should say. They have to invest in very very safe guaranteed kinds of investments. That’s the bottom line. So you are limited in terms of how they can generate great returns. The analysis that we have done is based on today’s interest rates, based on today’s interest rates the rate of return that you are going to get on the annuities over the next five years is what we are projected, is somewhere between 3% and 5%, everything working out well. You could do just as well but dumping it in a fixed annuity, guaranteed today, 3%, never lose your money, tax deferred and get the same results without all the hooks. The 7% bonus that you are getting, okay you will get that if you locked up your money for 10 years and those bonus annuities are the ones that pay the highest commissions. Often times 10% to 12% to 15%. Just think about it. If you put in $100,000 and right off the top, $10,000 or $15,000 is coming out, only 85,000-90,000 is being invested. How much that portfolio has to perform just to get you back to break even. So I am not a big fan of those annuities for the reason that I disclosed. There is a lot of moving parts in them that most people don’t understand. Do yourself a favor go to your website financialgroup.com. Click on info to know tab up at the top and click on The Rest of the Story. You will find everything you probably want to know about these kinds of annuities. That’s financialgroup.com, info to know and The Rest of the Story beneath that. That will get you the information to know. But you’re right, you won’t lose money. The problem is you won’t make as much I think as you think you will. The question is how much you really need to make so you don’t run out of money in 10 years. That’s the real key and that’s where planning comes in.
<Background Noise>
Well the other thing that I would ask Glen is how long are your surrender charges. If you decided you wanted to call this quits lets say in year 11 —
Yes.
Are you able to?
In year 11 yes. But after 10, you are only allowed 10%.
Right.
A lot of these annuities we find even though the guarantees go for 10 years sometimes the surrender charges go for another five. I’ve seen them go for 14 or 15 years. So you have to be really careful.
The guy that I talked to said that after 10 years you could take it all out. That was the question I asked him.
Glen it might fit your needs, you’ve got to be going in with your eyes open. But don’t expect to get market returns on that kind of investment. Because you are constrained by what the insurance company could earn in today’s interest rate environment, and it’s low. What you need to know is the insurance company can adjust what you call your participation rate or your cap rate. The cap rate is the rate that they are going to give you in other words <Inaudible> at 4% or 5%, whatever it might be. Or the participation rate is 50% or 75% whatever the S&P is. They could change that on an annual basis because they have to be able to do that so they can work within the constraints of what they are able to earn on their portfolio.
Alright.
I understand how it works, we are in the business, we see this all the time. I’m not a big fan of them. In some cases they work but they don’t really deliver I think what most insurance agents are promoting. My personal feeling.
Thanks.
But I bet dinner was good.
Yeah. Yeah it was. It really was.
What was the website. I got everything else but the website. Financialgroup.com. Financialgroup.com. Click on the info to know up at the top and lick On The Rest of the Story beneath it and you’ll find out all about that kind of stuff. Among other things.
You all have workshops as well but they are nothing like — you don’t offer steak dinners or anything.
No.
You get a cup of coffee and a donut, maybe a sandwich, a piece of fruit.
Our workshops are aimed at something totally different.
Well we do, we have a plethora of things coming up on — lets see is it February 18th we have a Social Security boot camp that Denise and Nancy are doing. They actually had one Thursday night and I believe we had a full house. Standing room only. So they are going to conduct another workshop on February 18th. This one is during the day 11:30 to 1:00. Then on February 9th Gary is going to do another workshop called Know Your Number, which is basically like a countdown to retirement, what’s your number. Meaning if you are getting ready — if you are at or near retirement and you are looking retire what needs to be in your piggy bank? That’s an excellent workshop <Inaudible> February 9th. On the 14th of May we have the Financial Basics for Life and that’s the one I was talking about with Gary Abley about just basic one-on-one financial information, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, long-term care. A lot of the things we talked about on this show if you want to sit in and learn a little bit more about the financial world, the investing world, that’s also a 11:00 to 1:00 on Saturday, May 14th. So that’s what we’ve got going on. That and we’ve got a concert coming up and we’ve got shredding coming up and —
Yeah when is the shredding event?
Tell them about that.
That’s a great question. When is it April?
It is April 16th.
April 16th, yeah Saturday. April 16th.
April 16th shredding.
What does that mean?
Shredding means you are so tired of walking in the garage and looking at those boxes that are just piled up and piled up and piled up and you have tax returns from 1958 and 60 and 61 and it is time to shred them. So we are limiting it to two boxes though. Please don’t bring the pick up truck full of boxes. A couple of boxes. Come by and have a cup of coffee and we’ll take those boxes off your hands. Make sure they go into this big shredder. You’ll be able to watch your box be shredded so you know that you know it has been shredded. Just kind of a fun morning at CFG. Come meet us, we’ll be on the air live from our offices in beautiful sunny Longwood, hopefully. That is on April 16th our shredding event.
Where can we go to find out more information?
That is on the website at financialgroup.com. A lot of good information. So all the workshops and shredding and all that information, financialgroup.com.
Okay we are going to get to the news center right now. But earlier I heard Joe say something like living on just Social Security is living below the poverty level. That sticks with me. So we are going talk about that coming up. I think it’d be a good reason to go to one of those workshops.
We are also going to talk about the market. Is it sending signals maybe <Inaudible> and we have a question about selling a Roth to pay off a mortgage. We’ll get to all of that plus your phone call too at 844-220-0965. We have the Oracle of Orlando in the studio with us this morning Joe Bert is in, along with Harry Stadelmayer. Taking your phone calls at 844-220-0965. Did you guys have an update for Chris on that currency question.
Joe we discussed and it was taxed at ordinary. Then he gains on the currency transaction. I want to circle back to Glen that had the question on the fixed indexed annuities. Glen what you want to do and then all of your listeners if you want more information just google fixed indexed annuity, fixed indexed annuity and the first whole bunch of listings will come up from insurance companies of course looking to sell you annuity. But I think there is a pretty even presented discussion on indexed annuities in the USA today column. It talks about the pros and cons. The bottom line is you’ll get a little bit more than you will in a CD. The thing is that what really <Inaudible> is they are really selling — they are trying to sell you a filet. At the end of the day you are really going to end up with a hamburger. Hamburger won’t kill you, but you are not going to get the filet that I think you think you are buying when you buy a fixed indexed annuity. That’s <Inaudible>.
Okay we have a quick e-mail here. 63 year old, 78,000 in a Roth IRA has a $70,000 mortgage basically should I sell the Roth to pay off the mortgage?
It depends on what your interest rate is and how far you are into the mortgage, are you paying mostly principal? <Background Noise>
I would think yeah 63, only 70,000 or so — what was it 68,000. The idea there is the money that comes out of the Roth is not taxable. So obviously that’s a really good thing. The idea there is that will it free up cash flow for you as you get into your retirement years? We don’t know a lot about this individual, if they have assets and plenty of assets to live on. But if pulling the 70,000 represents a sizable amount of your complete net worth I would suggest not doing that and paying down the mortgage. But in theory not a bad idea.
Before we scoot out of here we have this question I have. Living on Social Security is living below the poverty level Joe?
Yeah, unfortunately. If you look at what Social Security is providing it is below the national poverty level. So that’s why you have to save and invest in the future and hopefully you have some more income coming in, because that was supposed to be the golden years.
The idea way back was that Social Security was going to take care of you when you retired. Well actually that was never really meant to be that. Unfortunately that’s the way we are using it.
Social Security is really a <Inaudible> it shouldn’t be your retirement plan. Holy cow. If somebody wanted to get a hold of you guys and wanted to get a complimentary consultation how would they do that Harry.
Well there is two ways you could certainly pick up the phone and call the office which is 407-869-9800. I don’t believe anybody is there today. But leave a message and Michelle will make sure that someone calls you first thing Monday morning <Lost Signal>.