Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Avoid Negative Returns

For some reason the majority of Americans have been desensitized enough to accept the fact that your nest egg will have to 'ride the market roller coaster' if you want it to grow. What most people don't realize is that the downswings of the market have a much bigger affect than the upswings. Here is an example.

Lets say you invested $100,000 into a mutual fund and it had a 20% gain one year and a 20% loss the next year. Most likely you would assume that a positive 20% and a negative 20% puts you back at 0 and you broke even. But lets see what really happens:

Year 1 - $100,000 - +20% = $120,000
Year 2 - $120,000 - -20% = $96,000

Lets see what happens if we carry this same pattern out for 2 more years with the same +20% and -20%:


Year 3 - $96,000 - +20% = $115,200
Year 4 - $115,200 - -20% = $92,160

So even though it seems as though the market is staying even over those 4 years, your $100,000 investment is slowly disappearing.

It's become clear in the last few years that having your savings in a vehicle the is susceptible to the ups and downs of the market can have a catastrophic effect on your retirement income. As I said, most Americans have become accustomed to the fact that their savings are at risk and could, one day, dwindle to nothing.
That is because most people have made poor choices when it comes to the locations of their savings.

This is where systems such as You Be The Bank stem from. Systems like these offer a way to truly save your money in a safe, predictable environment where you won’t have to worry about your nest egg being cut in half if the market goes down.

Our economic times have changed the financial world we live in and if you are not willing to change with it you will never get ahead of the status quo. As illustrated above, understanding what negative returns do to your balance is a valuable tool in anyone’s quest to wealth.

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