Finance How much time do you spend thinking about your car? Not how great it looks, or how you love to drive it – but how it actuallyworks. If you’re like most Canadians, the answer is: not all that much. You want your vehicle to start when you turn the key. You don’t want to hear any rattles or strange noises. And, of course, you want it to keep you safe when you’re getting from point A to point B. But it’s not as if you want to look under the hood every day, or take a course in how to overhaul an engine. What you really want is for your car to do its thing, without giving you a lot of fuss or bother. You probably feel the same way about your retirement portfolio. Sure, there will always be some people who are intensely interested in the “nuts and bolts” of personal finance – the kind of people who want to learn as much as they can about how investing works. But most of us aren’t like that. We want our portfolios to run like our cars: smoothly, taking us where we want to go safely, without a lot of fuss or bother. For that to happen, we need to give our portfolios the same basic level of care which we give to our vehicles. Much like our cars, our portfolios need tune-ups from time to time, to ensure that small problems are dealt with before they turn into big problems. Whether you work with a financial professional or you’re more of a do-it-yourself investor, a regular review will help you secure a portfolio that’s more in keeping with both current market conditions and your long-term lifestyle goals. If you haven’t taken a close look at your portfolio for a while, now is the perfect time to do so. Market activity is often a little slower (traders and Wall Street types tend to be on vacation). As well, it’s often a period during which investors have a little more time on their hands. Here’s how to begin: Checking up on your portfolio How to complete a portfolio review, and why you should. By James Dolan 36 | www.snowbirds.org
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzMzNzMx