ANNUITIES & MUTUAL FUNDS

We’ve covered quite a bit of information, but believe me, we have really just scratched the surface. Mutual funds and annuities can certainly be more complex than simply what we’ve tackled in this book. However, after reading this, you’ll be armed with the fundamentals you’ll need to help make sense of any such investment proposed to you. You always hear coaches in sports stressing the importance of fundamentals, and how most games are won or lost based on which team does the little things, the fundamental things correctly. We even hear this mantra from CEOs of corporations throughout the world, except they refer to concentrating on the company’s core competencies. Core competencies is corporate lingo for a company focusing on the fundamentals that built the company and keeping those basic concepts in focus as they attempt to grow their business. Investing is the same way: stay focused on the fundamentals of diversification and being consistent through up markets and down markets, and your money will grow over time.

        The primary reason why I wrote this book was to educate common investors about some of the main reasons why investing in mutual funds and annuities can be advantageous and also to warn against a few of the pitfalls that await when investing in these products. You now have the knowledge to decipher for yourself whether a particular investment is suitable for your needs and are no longer reliant solely on the advice of your investment representative or pundits you may see on TV. One of my biggest fears is that investors in the marketplace are basing too many of their decisions on information they hear on financial shows aired on both TV and radio. Don’t let opinions you hear on these shows jade your view on certain investments, because despite the credentials of these individuals, their opinions are all too often biased and uninformed. The opinions offered on these shows often lean towards one extreme or another. For instance, they either have a disdain for annuities and believe them to be over-priced, unsuitable investments for anyone, or they are on the other extreme and advocate annuities as investment vehicles that everyone should invest in. In actuality, neither opinion is correct. Those opinions are designed to be controversial and drive ratings. Anyone who simply dismisses annuities offhand is taking an ignorant point of view and the flip side is also correct for anyone advocating the suitability of annuities for all investors. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. I can’t stress enough how important it is for common investors such as ourselves to gather multiple opinions before making an investment decision. Don’t let just one person or group of people sell you anything until you have done some homework on the subject and consulted another investment representative or financial professional about it. Do you buy a car without shopping around from dealership to dealership in order to gather information and find the best terms for your investment? Of course not. I’ll emphasize once again that investment representatives are some of the most highly skilled and well-trained salesmen (and women) in the world. In order to be successful in their field, they must not only be proficient in prospecting new clients but closing those new clients and getting them to buy their idea. Please keep this in mind when considering making any investment.