MEET THE COACH
Background
For more than twenty years my career was dedicated to broadcast television, the majority of it in sports broadcasting. For most of that time I worked nights and weekends. My days were largely free to pursue other interests and for my friends and I that meant investing in the stock market. As the great bull run of the mid-late nineties developed, we discovered that our hobby was becoming more.
In March 2000, the market was very exciting and everything seemed to be working. However, due to a serious illness I was forced to leave my job in order to care for my mother. Consequently, I sold all of my investments and put them into fixed income instruments. Over the next few months and her prognosis worsened, we began delving into her finances to initiate the inevitable planning that would be necessary as her health deteriorated.
As we began to analyze my mother’s finances, it became evident that she had little understanding of her assets or investments and in many cases even how she obtained them, or why. The market had just begun the devastating correction that many remember all too well and not surprisingly, many of her “mystery” investments were technology stocks with significant positions in both her retirement and private accounts.
Virtually all were “tips” from her friends and colleagues and she had little or no knowledge about any of these companies or why she should own them, only that a friend or colleague had suggested that she should. Fortunately, I was able to convince her that we should liquidate all of her stock based assets, transfer them into fixed income vehicles, and wait to see how all of these overwhelming events, most importantly her health, would progress.
That decision turned out to be a financial blessing, though via the cruelest of tragic ironies, and likely would never have occurred had her illness not been diagnosed when it was. If the discovery had come even a few months later, the financial consequences for our family, dozens of her friends and their families, and many others may also have been catastrophic, similar to the thousands of retirees, families and individuals who discovered too late that they were unprotected and unprepared for the magnitude of that long and devastating market correction.
My mother realized and understood that if we had not intervened, her assets and estate may have been ravaged. She began calling and telling all of her friends, mostly retirees, what we had done and that they too should act before it was too late.
If any positive outcome could be taken from her illness, and ultimate passing, the resulting events became largely responsible for my goal and ambition to educate and assist individuals, and particularly retirees, about protecting their investment and retirement assets.
Beginning in the summer of 2000 and continuing well into 2001, dozens of her friends and friends of their friends began calling for help, some begging for help, about what to do with their investments that were quickly and tragically withering to fractions of their peak values. Some had already lost thousands, some hundreds of thousands, and a few had losses exceeding a million dollars.
One of the common themes among the hundreds of discussions was that time and time again advisors and brokers had assured them that their portfolios were adequately and properly diversified to weather the storm of “normal” market corrections like this one, and that they should not be overly concerned. As we all know now, this market correction was anything but normal.
As a result of witnessing such intense fear, frustration and pain, I decided from that point forward that a significant part of my life would be dedicated to helping people protect themselves from the kind of catastrophe we were experiencing. Ten years later, here we are, still educating and still helping anyone who will listen.
The Trade Coach program has had a great impact not only my life but also the lives of my friends and family. I look forward to working with you too, and I am committed to providing personalized and professional service to help you achieve your financial goals for a brighter future.