Links - Financial Education & Financial NewsFinancial calculators allow you to take a good look at your personal financial situation prior to engaging in discussions with potential financial planners, advisors or brokers. By spending some time educating yourself and taking a hard look at your true situation, you will be in a better position to make decisions about your own risk/reward tolerance. As Ron Firmin says in "Fire Your Financial Planner", you may find that you do indeed have some recurring income that can be used to build your PRA. Click on "Financial Calculators" on the navbar and you will be provided with the best tools on the net for helping you make important decisions regarding your future. Bookmark "Financial Calculators and use this page every week. AS Ron says, it is only "21 days from pain to gain". This link will take you to a signup page where you can register / subscribe to The Retirement Solution's powerful OPS-based information. Prior to registering you can navigate the site and access highly educational and easy to understand information that will answer most of your questions. When you have the opportunity to select, "Dig Deeper", be sure to read the section, "EPS vs. OPS". This will help you to understand why the 'portfolio model' derived from OPS driven stock picks outperforms the market and the S & P 500 and most other benchmarks. It is not necessary to register to gain a basic understanding of why I recommend MyStockTools. Many customers register simply because of the value of the weekly newsletters which, if adhered to during the first six months of 2008, would have resulted in a 12% increase in value on stocks picked based on this methodology. After registering, you have the option to choose to purchase your own portfolio from one of the industry's foremost broker/dealers, FOLIOfn. The low fixed costs offered by MyStockTools and FOLIOfn make this a no-brainer for the average investor. "Fire Your Financial Planner", provides an excellent overview of EPS vs. OPS. It also gives the history of OPS and explains that it is the basis for the outstanding performance of The Retirement Solution's 'model portfolio'. My Stock Tools Customer Registration Financial Jargon This article emphasizes the point Firmin makes on page 61 of "Fire Your Financial Planner", "When I realized how badly I had managed my PRA, I fired myself. However, I learned from that precipitous firing. Over the years I made it my business to gain knowledge of investments and an understanding of how money works. This has led to increased confidence - to the point where I felt I could rehire myself. After all, no one wishes for my investments to be successful as much as I do." Link to AARP article discussing "Financial Jargon". "Financial Jargon - You Just Don't Understand" Even In Down Market, Some Stocks Deliver High Returns On page xi of the Introduction to his book "Fire Your Financial Planner", Firmin says, "It does not matter how much cargo you have on your ship, you have to get it out of the harbor. In other words, historically the stock market has moved upward, although there have been declines from time to time. But if you follow all the charts, it is clear that the market, over the long haul, trends upward. So this option should not be avoided simply because you currently have no investments or your available funds for investing may be small. With the advent of the Internet, the market is available to small investors like it never has been in history. That may be the greatest story of the success behind the stock market in recent times." ___________________________ Barron's article on 5/12/08 emphasizes the benefits of operational cashflow in analyzing a company's true strength. |