Educational Guides for Financial Planning 

Managing your investment portfolio and developing a financial or investment plan to meet your goals are massive—potentially daunting—responsibilities. The amount of information available can be overwhelming at times regardless of your investing experience. Not knowing when and where to start investing can deter some beginners who keep putting it off.

Whether you have invested your own finances or have turned things over to a professional, Fisher Investments Canada has produced a series of helpful investment guides designed with you in mind. We created these free guides to help curious investors develop a positive approach to investing and provide them with the tools they need to invest wisely and achieve their long-term investing goals.

In this article, we’ll discuss just a few of these guides we think you might find useful.

Which direction is the market headed? The Stock Market Outlook looks at key stock market drivers and can be useful whether you manage your own investments or work with an investment professional. This guide is produced quarterly and provides an in-depth analysis on the current state of global economy and recent events. We hope this piece helps you understand markets and better analyse financial data as it’s released.

Running out of money in retirement is, justifiably, one of the biggest fears for many to-be retirees. The 15-Minute Retirement Plan is a concise, data-supported investment guide addressing key considerations for investors who want to employ their liquid assets wisely in order to fund help fun their retirement.

Although the guide may not tell you where to invest or how to navigate the stock market, it does provide a useful framework for planning and investing for retirement. The guide will help you begin determining answers to the following questions:

• How long will your portfolio need to provide for you?
• How will cash withdrawals and inflation impact your portfolio?
• What is your primary investment objective?
• What are the important trade-offs you may need to make?

Whether you have managed your finances on your own or if you have turned things over to a professional, the 15-Minute Retirement Plan offers insight to make sure that you are asking the right questions to meet your financial goals. It can be a great starting point for those looking to retire in the near future or a great reassessment tool for investors already enjoying retirement.

Do you know how much your retirement will cost? Have you considered how to develop an income stream once you give up working? Many people find these questions troubling, and by the time they finally start to consider them, they may have missed out on some potential investment returns.

The Definitive Guide to Retirement Income looks at some important planning considerations to help investors think differently about how to achieve their desired level of cash flows in retirement. This guide starts by encouraging you to define your long-term investment goals. Some common retiree goals are to avoid running out of money, maintain a certain lifestyle or even pass money on to their heirs.

Once you’ve defined your goals, then you can move on to asking the important questions for how you might achieve those goals and implement a sound long-term investment strategy. There are many questions to answer in this process, but here are a few we think are especially useful:

• How will you pay for retirement? Once you have considered how much your retirement will cost, you will need to work out how you’re going to pay for it. Depending on your situation, you might pay for your retirement with an investment portfolio that you have accumulated over the years, pension income or some other form of ongoing income.
• If investments will be your primary source of income, which assets should you invest in? Investment portfolios are a common source of income for many retirees, but many believe income-generating assets, such as fixed interest or high-dividend stocks, are needed to help them pay the bills. Other sources, may recommend pooled-asset products, such as mutual funds, to help you diversify. This section of the guide focuses on the difference between income and cash flow, and a potential alternative to some traditional income generation methods
• What about alternative investment income sources? Some investors may have other sources of income to factor into your retirement income planning. One common example of alternative investments is Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). Depending on your long-term investment goals, these products may not be optimal instruments to generate retirement income.

These topics are crucial to consider as you save and plan for retirement. While many investors focus solely on income-generating assets for retirement income, other methods of paying for retirement may provide more flexibility and, if necessary, higher growth potential. The Definitive Guide to Retirement Income can help you get started thinking about how you will pay for your own retirement.

Are you paying hidden fees? Are your mutual funds personalized for you? Is there such a thing as over-diversification? Are you sacrificing tax efficiencies with your funds? In this must-read guide, you will learn the following: Whether or not mutual funds are the best choice for your portfolio, how mutual funds may ignore your unique investing goals, what impact complex fees may have on your portfolio and much more!

Fisher Investments Canada’s Investment Guides

The investment management industry can be difficult to navigate at times, and advice from different sources might be conflicting. That is just one reason why we are dedicated to helping educate investors. Making sure you have the right information is one of the most important steps you can take towards achieving your long-term goals.

We hope you take a minute and read through one of these guides as you plan for your financial future. And, if it’s right, we hope you consider talking with us about our services. If you would like to receive complimentary copies of our guides, you may download them here or contact us to speak with one of our professionals today.