Throughout his career, Mark Nevdahl has been dedicated to assisting individuals using a unique “educate before recommending” approach. Mark believes that expert advice and discipline are the foundations of every investment decision. As a Certified Financial Planner...
Publish Date: May 1, 2007
Mark Nevdahl, CFP®
The markets have been performing well over the past month and we seem to have lived through the market turbulence of earlier this year. If you remember, the press had the market and the economy crashing. I felt back then and I still feel that the markets are poised to continue this bullish attitude. That doesn’t mean we can be complacent, you should be evaluating your asset allocation and stay vigilant over your portfolio.
For all American taxpayers - Our favorite month of the year has just past. Well, I’m sure some of you filed for an extension to buy time and get organized just like last year, when you finally sat down and started looking all over the house, car, and office for all those tax records. After all, it should only take you a few hours right? The point here is to start getting organized today for your 2007 taxes. It is as simple as this: The next time you receive a large envelope in the mail write “2007 TAXES” across the outside. Then from here on out when you have a receipt or statement simply place it in the envelope. In January 2008, you’re ready to go.
We all avoid things we dislike and I have yet to find someone who likes paying taxes. Although the next time you are driving on the interstate think about who paid for it. What’s the saying “necessary evil”? Of course, how much time and space could we spend here discussing how our tax dollars are spent? It doesn’t really matter what political party you may follow, spending is a problem. We as taxpayers need to take away the Cash Card from Congress.
On the tax subject... How many of you have paid taxes on Mutual Fund capital gains and interest that you never received? This is an area where ETF’s have advantages over Mutual Funds. The capital gains and interest income that you are taxed on are controlled by you, just like an equity trade. There is one situation where you could possibly have a taxable event and that is if the underlying index is restructured, which would cause a selling of the security being removed and a purchase of the replacement.
So a couple of smart investing tips” - First, if you are going to invest in Mutual Funds always check the fund’s distribution schedule, especially in the later part of the year. The information can be found by either calling the fund or at the fund’s website. The second is just use ETF’s, as you control the buys and sells plus you get the advantage of low expense ratios.
The opinions and commentary provided by the advisors in the My Automated Advisor Newsletter are the opinion of those advisors and not of My Automated Advisor.
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