Invest For The Recovery Under Obama

Whether you are an Obama fan or an Obama opponent, since he has become our newest President of the United States his policies will have an affect on the financial markets, both domestically and internationally.He wants to bring change to the United States which by extension means world markets because we have such a huge economic foot print.
With Barak Obama as President and the most powerful leader in the world, how should you structure your investment portfolio – both your taxable portfolio and your 401(k) or IRA, etc.?
1. Taxes definitely matter: With all the spending that is going on, eventually taxes will go up. That seems to be a given. How much and who will pay are the only questions that remain. If your capital gains rate goes from 15% to 25%, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that there will be a lot less to either spend or reinvest after taxes are paid. A dividend rate of up to 35% has been floated by the Obama folks – although not much has been said lately because they are all too busy trying to spend trillions of dollars to hopefully turn the economy around. Good luck on that. It it weren’t for the fact that so many municipalities are going broke (or at least they claim to be), tax free municipal bonds would be a good addition. Be sure your Advisor is implementing solid tax management with your portfolio. Tax managed passive mutual funds (like index funds) have an extremely low tax impact.
2. You can’t fool Mother Nature or the Capital Markets, they work: Turn on your TV any week-end and you will hear the “gurus” announcing which sectors or industries will boom under the Obama Administration and which will go bust. Academicians have shown over and again that such attempts to combine stock picking with market timing almost never outperform the broad market – the truth is they generally underperform. When they do outperform it is usually just plain luck rather than skill that can be exploited for profits and this it is not repeatable. Financial markets are essentially efficient and any attempt to regulate trade or change tax policy will end up being priced into the securities as soon as the news hits the wires.
3. Remove uncertainty by Diversification: Risk is really the uncertainty of future outcomes when investing. Diversification will reduce the uncertainty of a given portfolio. Lets assume you have a fund with 3500 stocks in it. A couple of those happen to be Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. With that many companies in your portfolio, you will hardly notice it as those two companies go out of existence. On the other hand, if you have a mutual fund of only financial companies, you will feel it big time. See what I mean? You can reduce the risk of uncertainty through very broad diversification.
4. Risk and Return are Related: Exposure to meaningful risk factors in a diversified portfolio determines expected return. Over the long haul, stocks outperform bonds but not always; over the long haul small stocks outperform large stocks, but not always; over the long haul value stocks outperform growth stocks, but not always. Each of these outperformers has a greater volatility risk and a greater expected return.
5. Portfolio Structure Explains Performance: Asset allocation along size, value, and market exposure dimensions primarily determines the results of a broadly diversified portfolio. In other words, to increase the expected return of your portfolio under an Obama Presidency, own low cost, globally diversified asset class mutual funds that are over weighted to smaller and more value oriented stocks. If an all stock fund portfolio is too volatile for you, add some short term bond funds to damper the volatility.
Winning the loser’s game is as simple as following academically sound investment principles. Dont give in to the sirens of Wall Street who have proven their ability to separate you from your money, quickly and permanently.

Article Source: http://www.articles.com.mx

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