Welcome to our monthly Economic, Capital Market, and Financial Planning tip of the month.

This months Financial Planning Tip of the month, may help you earn extra dollars this coming year!

For those new to our writings, we touch on the most pertinent Financial “stuff” along with a video of my mug that has even more specialized details of the latest month as well as this post.

Ok…let’s go!

VIDEO

You Tube Direct Link   or   Vimeo Direct Link

Another Financial Planning Tip: Spread retirement contributions Evenly

Spread Evenly

Due to control of investment options (not great) and regular contributions (that’s your dollars) spread your contributions over the year and attempt to max your retirement plan out in December.

By doing this you will lower the worry of less control of your investments AND dollar cost average into your plan throughout the year.

Remember, if it’s a new plan or your contributions are making up the majority of the account, making it a beast (aggressive) may be best.

Oil drops like a lead balloon

This ETF called USO (US Oil) is a reasonable proxy for oil prices. Don’t you think it’s hard to believe the world’s oil prices can change that fast? Of course it is. You never know if they were over priced to begin with (for a LONG time) or if they are overshooting on the downside. Our bet, the latter. We are certainly aware asset classes can stay out of favor for some time.

Here is another good example of a basket of  commodities (Gold, Silver, Oil, Beef…etc) that we really like and include in portfolios for diversification.  Hmmm …. looks pretty silly holding these as they fall like a rock ?  Buy low!

Let’s go back to 1-1-14 and see what this same basket looked like. While not always easy to hold, rest assured they don’t always go in just a downward direction.  We trimmed these positions as they weights became too heavy for portfolio allocations. Sell High!

Thanks for your time and Happy Start to 2015 !

John A. Kvale CFA, CFP