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    You Can Do It Yourself Investor’S Guide: How to Invest in Your 401K and Ira
    You Can Do It Yourself Investor’S Guide: How to Invest in Your 401K and Ira
    You Can Do It Yourself Investor’S Guide: How to Invest in Your 401K and Ira
    Ebook137 pages1 hour

    You Can Do It Yourself Investor’S Guide: How to Invest in Your 401K and Ira

    By Charlie Emery

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    About this ebook

    Charlie Emery has been an active, self-taught investor for over twenty years.
    He has invested in his 401k plan at work as well as regular and Roth IRAs. He has learned the hard way, by trial and error, what does and doesnt work. Building on that experience, You Can Do It Yourself Investors Guide seeks to help todays working investor, most of whom will not have a traditional pension plan to fall back on when they retire.

    If you are familiar with or willing to learn to work with a spreadsheet program like Excel; you can chart your own investments effectively. By spending a few hours each week managing your own investments and following a disciplined plan of action for your investments, you can plan for your long-term financial health. Emery also provides a top-down plan for the ETF investor who doesnt have a lot of time or money to spend managing their portfolio, along with a bottom-up plan that takes a little more time, but offers better rewards. This helpful guide can help you make your way past the financial planners and investment advisors who promise you big returns, but rarely deliver on their promises.

    You can manage your own investments and plan your financial future effectively. The time to start is now.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateMar 13, 2013
    ISBN9781475977417
    You Can Do It Yourself Investor’S Guide: How to Invest in Your 401K and Ira
    Author

    Charlie Emery

    Charlie Emery retired in 2009 after more than forty-four years of working for Chrysler. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Martin University in Indianapolis, Indiana. He has been an Active investor in his 401k and IRAs for over twenty years. He and his wife, Betty, have two sons and six grandchildren. They live in Greenfield, Indiana.

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      Book preview

      You Can Do It Yourself Investor’S Guide - Charlie Emery

      Copyright © 2013 Charlie Emery.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      The information, ideas, and suggestions in this book are not intended to render professional advice. Before following any suggestions contained in this book, you should consult your personal accountant or other financial advisor. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be liable or responsible for any loss or damage allegedly arising as a consequence of your use or application of any information or suggestions in this book.

      iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      iUniverse

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.iuniverse.com

      1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-4759-7743-1 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4759-7742-4 (hc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4759-7741-7 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2013903335

      iUniverse rev. date: 4/4/2013

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Introduction

      CHAPTER 1   Why You Should Just Do It Yourself.

      CHAPTER 2   Investing in Your Employer’s Plan

      CHAPTER 3   Mutual Funds

      CHAPTER 4   The Business Cycle

      CHAPTER 5   Beat The Market With Exchange Traded Funds

      CHAPTER 6   Beat the Market With Dividend Paying Common Stocks

      CHAPTER 7   Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs)

      CHAPTER 8   Fixed Income

      CHAPTER 9   A Little Speculation

      CHAPTER 10 Ten Alternative Investments

      Afterword

      To My Wonderful Wife Betty:

      Thank you for helping me get through the trial and error of writing my first book. I’m truly blessed for having had you by my side for the last forty-eight years. I love you.

      78454980.jpg

      INTRODUCTION

      I’ve always been a ‘do it yourself’ type of person. You have probably heard about that old adage: A jack of all trades is the master of none. That being said, most people are capabable of being very good at more than one thing. So, I’ll let you know right now that I have never worked in the financial services industry, and I don’t have any recognized professional credentials or letters after my name. I’m an accountant who recently retired (in 2009).

      There are some advantages to not having worked in the financial services industry, and being a sixty-seven year old retiree who wants to share the investing knowledge he has gained through many years of trial and error. There isn’t the worry about a boss looking at my book and asking: "Why did you write that?" Nothing is being held back that might benefit you. I’m free to speak from the heart. In writing this book there isn’t any hidden agenda. The main goal is that you will benefit from what you read and recommend this book to your friends and colleagues. Hopefully, you will believe this book is worth at least as much as a one year subscription to a financially oriented magazine. This book is written from the individual investor’s perspective because, to be honest, it’s the only perspective I’ve ever experienced.

      If you bought this book looking for a guru that promises to make you a millionaire overnight, you bought the wrong book. If you bought this book because you are tired of hearing financial planners and investment advisors promise you big returns, but still want their high fees even when they don’t deliver on their promises, you have taken at least one step towards that goal.

      Another main goal is that you, after reading this book, will want to fire your financial advisor if you still have one. Are you familiar with (or willing to learn) a spreadsheet software program like Excel? Are you willing to spend a few hours each week managing your own investments? In addition, are you willing to follow a disciplined plan of action? It‘s assumed that you are, and this book will help you plan your financial future and manage those investments yourself. Don’t let this task scare you.

      Henry Ford was once quoted as saying:

      ‘If you think you can or — can’t—you are right’.

      It mostly comes down to your desire to succeed, and no one cares more about your financial future than you do.

      Back in the early 1990’s I started saving in my 401k plan at work. I also had a regular IRA account (Roth IRAs were not available then) with a major full service brokerage. After I noticed that this company’s mutual funds were not keeping pace with market returns, my broker told me I shouldn’t expect to match the market returns with his company’s mutual funds. Instead I should let him pick good stocks for me. So I followed his advice on a couple of stocks and did not get good results. Against that brokers advice, I went with my own knowledge of Ford Motor Company (F) stock and Chrysler Bonds (I worked for Chrysler for over forty-four years). We were coming out of the recession in the early 1990’s. I got much better results than this so called financial professional by going against his advice. He did not have a good enough explanation for me so I moved on to a discount broker and I have never looked back.

      I’m an amateur investor who has tried to work hard and learn from my mistakes, and I’ve achieved much better than average results. I have been actively managing my own portfolios since the early 1990s and I’ve found that just as in anything else we do in life, there is a learning curve involved in investing. It’s not that difficult if you a willing to follow a few simple rules and learn from your mistakes or, better yet, the mistakes of others, and most of all, if you don’t let the naysayers scare you. I am especially proud of the results I have achieved since January 1, 1999. That’s fourteen calendar years and counting. I’ve made all of my buy and sell decisions since the early 1990s including investing in:

      Mutual Funds

      Exchange Traded Funds (ETF’s)

      Common Stocks

      Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs)

      Corporate Bonds

      Preferred Stocks

      Now, if after reading this book and learning whatever you can from other sources (which is highly recommend) you decide that managing your own investments is not for you for whatever reason, I would strongly suggest you find a fee only financial planner. This would be someone who should be working for you only and not receiving commissions from other sources.

      When you have a stock broker, especially from a major brokerage firm, his or her only obligation to you is to recommend a suitable investment. For example, there could be a situation where there are ten mutual funds to choose from, and the advisor recommends the worst performing fund which just happens to pay him the biggest commission. The broker is untroubled since the fund can still be considered suitable but purchasing it is not necessarily in your best interest. A financial advisor is held to a higher standard, he or she is obligated to act in your

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