How You Can Benefit from RIS Advice

1. Investment advice on stocks, mutual funds, 401ks and 403bs, IRAs, etc.

Learn which funds should be avoided and which should be used in your 401k, SSIP/ DCP, stock savings plan, 403b, or TIAA-CREF account.
Understand how much you should put into each fund; when you should change your allocation; and how we can help implement these changes.
See why you shouldn't sell your long-held company’s stock in your 401k or stock saving plan without talking to us first.
Learn about our multiple approaches to diversification.
See how you can check your investment balances, holdings and activity on a daily basis using our web site.
See how we work with SEI and separate account money managers to bring the best institutional money managers in the U.S. and overseas (without having high minimum account sizes) to manage your accounts.
Find out what Wall Street analysts are saying about your stocks – buy, sell or hold.
Understand why chasing mutual fund performance may be counter productive in trying to increase your investment returns.

Learn how we coordinate all your investments and focus them properly to help you work toward your financial independence.
See how we consolidate your investments into a single periodic report.
Analyze whether you may have too much invested in your company’s stock in direct holdings, in stock options and in your retirement plan. If you have too much, which should you sell first? The benefits of selecting the right one may be large.

See how investors from 1950 have made as much investing in just six months of the year as in the full twelve months.
See how you could have gotten similar returns to buying and holding the stock market but with half the risk since you would have been fully invested only half the year.
Understand how we have improved upon this six-month seasonality.
Learn why the seasonality exists and why it is likely to continue in the future.
Learn how the Seasonal Approach can be applied to conservative and aggressive portfolios.
See how the Approach is used with investors who like to be fully invested with 50%, 60%, 80% or 100% of their portfolio in equities.

Learn how you can get a second, independent opinion on whether to exercise your options. Learn what Wall Street analysts are recommending on buying, selling or holding your company’s stock.
Determine how you might try to take advantage of the normal volatility of your company’s stock price when you are exercising your stock options.

What issues are critical to consider as you retire and before you rollover anything to an IRA?
Understand why you need a plan to try to triple or quadruple your income during retirement.
Determine whether you can retire when you want or whether there is something you should be doing differently now to enhance your retirement.
Learn whether your 401k, 403b or stock savings plan is one in which there are significant reasons you should stay in the plan after retirement or significant reasons you should get out of the plan as soon as possible. Or, is your 401k more accommodating and you need a thoughtful explanation of the pros and cons of staying in the plan or rolling over to an IRA.
Understand how you can get the appreciation of your company’s stock in your 401k or stock savings plan treated as long term capital gains rather than ordinary income for tax purposes. A current tax rate difference could be as much as 20%.
Find out how to avoid costly missteps with your retirement plan that cannot be reversed.
See why "do-it-yourself" retirement planning software may be risky to rely upon in this important area.

Learn whether you can protect the benefits of tax-deferred investing for your heirs. This can be extremely important. The cost to your heirs could be millions of dollars over their lives. You don’t have to lose the benefit of tax-deferred investing for your heirs.
Learn what the benefits of staying in the 401k are - versus rolling over to an IRA. RIS will help handle the paperwork to avoid costly mistakes.
If you need more than your Social Security and pension benefits to live on, should you take the additional money from your retirement accounts first or taxable family accounts? The answer may surprise you.
Learn whether you qualify for a Roth IRA conversion to reduce future income and estate taxes.
Should you take a single-life annuity or pension or take the two-thirds or one-half survivor benefit?
Should you start Social Security at age 62 or wait for the larger post-65 benefit?
Should you replace the company-paid life insurance that has been dropped by the company at retirement?
See how we try to get the right answers to your retirement questions when the answers you are getting from your administrators are not clear.

Learn whether you have too much or too little life insurance.
Determine whether you need long term care insurance. (We have strong recommendations here.)
See why the new college funding programs are desirable and why your UGMA accounts and other college investment accounts probably should be closed and the assets transferred. Understand how college 529 plans work and how they can be used as a new estate planning tool.
Check whether to lease or buy a car? Refinance your mortgage? Pay points or no points?

What estate planning may be appropriate for you in light of the new tax laws?
Learn why trust, wills, durable powers and estate planning are still important.
What you should be doing now to protect your family if you should die prematurely?
How does RIS act as a quarterback of a family’s financial affairs?
See how the new minimum distribution rules for plans and IRAs affect you and your heirs. The new rules are allowing significantly more asset buildup in the IRAs than under the old laws.

Other topics:

Retirement Income Solutions, Inc. is an independent Registered Investment Advisor.