Just A Few Things.

If you are an investment client of Financial Planning Associates, Inc., your preliminary 3rd quarter reports have been posted in your secure web portal.

During the quarter our clients’ investment accounts increased in value by an average amount of 2.35%. Our most aggressively managed portfolio increased by 9.22% during the quarter. The average increase during the past 12 months has been 6.08%, and the account that gained the most was up 21.93%. Final reports will replace the preliminary reports after September inflation information becomes available.

Note: The calculation used to determine our clients’ returns is called the internal rate of return. It is cash flow specific and is net of all fees and expenses. It represents the average return experienced by our investment clients, from the most conservative to the least conservative who were invested during any portion of the period. Typically, our younger clients experience returns greater than the average and our most conservative investors may experience results that are lower. Investment return information is provided by Morningstar using GIPS standards.


A recent SEC ruling requires certain procedural changes.

We do our best to handle the various transactions required by our clients in ways that allow our clients to spend their lives pursuing their important activities, and not the tedious requirements associated with the various business entities necessary for managing financial assets. Therefore, in the past, as clients have needed to transfer funds between their bank accounts and their investment accounts they would typically just call our office and we would take care of the details. A recent SEC regulatory ruling has made this impossible, therefore in order to assist our clients with these transactions we now provide step-by-step instructions for moving cash between their Schwab accounts and their bank accounts using the Schwab Alliance web portal. You can access the instructions by selecting the Clients link from the main menu of our website, www.fpai.net and then choosing Transferring Cash To/From Your Schwab Account(s) And Your Bank Account(s).


A more confident today and a more secure tomorrow.

The CFP Board of Standards and Practices has recently produced advertising materials to promote the increasing importance of Certified Financial Planner practitioners in the 21st century. The idea is that our clients enjoy a “more confident today and a more secure tomorrow”. That’s right.


‘I’ll be working until I die’: Baby boomers face reality they might never retire. 

Many of our clients are happily retired, enjoying a confident today and a secure tomorrow. Many of those not yet retired can also confidently expect a secure tomorrow. However, some folks are unlikely to ever become financially independent, hence the title shown above of the piece recently published on Bankrate.com. There are many reasons why some baby boomers will likely never retire, at least not completely, not like their fathers retired. Insufficient wealth is probably chief among the reasons, but there are others, and they are not all bad. In a future blog post, I will cover some of the logic and factors that some of my clients have discussed during their retirement planning reviews, and my insights based on the changing time that we inhabit. The Bankrate piece can be viewed here.


Your Morningstar web portal has been improved.

Our clients have access to a secure web portal which includes up to date investment information and a utility for securely and conveniently transferring and receiving data to and from our office. This portal is where your financial planning reports are posted. As well, our clients can post copies of their important documents for safe keeping. Typically, our clients upload copies of their tax returns, wills, trusts, insurance policies, etc. during an annual PFP review and the copies remain available indefinitely for use whenever needed. The portal got a facelift recently as part of ongoing improvements.


We’ve recently increased our personal financial planning fees. If you have been quoted a fee within the past couple of years, but have not booked your first review appointment, I recommend that you do so soon. We have decided to honor the lower quotes until the end of October. After that higher fees will be required.

Note: Investment management fees have not changed.


Missouri Real Estate Commission warns of timeshare scam.

Want to sell your timeshare? Be careful, you may get a call from a scammer. Details here.


Do you want more efficient government? More efficient businesses?

I was talking with one of our favorite clients recently. He is an IT professional, and we were discussing Distributed Ledger Technology. You’ve probably heard it referred to as Blockchain. We reported on it in a prior blog post, which you can review here. The application of this technology and others, which will result in much greater efficiencies and much lower costs for governments and businesses, are discussed in a recent blog post by Peter Diamandis. Bob Dylan was right, the times, they are a-changin’. And, they are changing in ways you may not have expected. Dr. Diamandis’ words are here.


Thanks for reading.

Takes your mind off the worry about cavities.

PS. A very quick book report.

A while back I picked up a copy of Prediction Machines, The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence, by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb. Each of the authors is a professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. The book points out that in business there is great value in being able to make inexpensive, accurate predictions, and that artificial intelligence can improve accuracy and reduce costs. They delve into when and how best to use artificial intelligence in a particular business situation, and what decisions should not be delegated to AI. There is a chapter entitled, Beyond Business which briefly addresses some of the aspects of AI not specifically related to business decisions. This book would be valuable for business leaders faced with deciding when and how to use AI as it currently exists. Those looking for more general information concerning AI applications, and not specifically interested in applying AI to a large, or possibly medium-sized business are likely to be disappointed.

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