Join Kristen Oakley and financial planner Rob Auclair in this week’s Retire with Balance episode as they discuss the importance of asset allocation in retirement planning. Learn how to create a well-balanced investment strategy that optimizes your financial security and ensures a comfortable retirement.Â
Topics Discussed:
- Balanced Wealth Management’s Family Origins
- Navigating Market Volatility with Disciplined Investing
- Understanding Asset Allocation and Fund Selection
- Strategies for Generating Retirement Income Safely
- Easing Financial Anxiety through Education and Preparation
Transcript:
Kristen Oakley:
Hello, Rhode Island and welcome to this week’s edition of Retire with Balance, the show designed to help take the complexity out of your retirement planning. I’m your host Kristen Oakley. And joining me in the studio is financial planner Rob Auclair with Balanced Wealth Management. Rob, my friend, it’s great to be in the studio with you. How are you this week?
Rob Auclair:
You too! I’m very good.
Kristen Oakley:
Well, good. Well, I’m so excited we got to meet a couple of months ago, and it’s been such a joy getting to know you and getting to know a little bit more about what you do day in and day out through Balanced Wealth Management. And I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to host the show with you. It’s gonna be great. Well, good. I know a lot of viewers might be newer to you and to your practice, so I’d love for you to start off just by sharing a little bit about how Balanced Wealth Management came to be. What’s your story?
Rob Auclair:
Yeah, so I think a lot of it comes to like family values. So it starts with my dad, who was a professor at Providence College, and I do tell the story a lot, but it’s where it comes from. And besides being a teacher at Providence College, he would do financial planning, and he would do tax returns for about 50 to 100 people in a given year. And really kind of did it complimentary as friends of the family and everything. So when I grew up, I saw that it was the green spreadsheets, didn’t have Excel. And I saw the motivation, the love, and just him being able to like help people. And for him, that was absolutely pure, and I hope I bring that. I realized this is my career, right, I do have to make money. But at the same time, what I saw as his passion to kind of help those people is really kind of where it all started. And so we were able to work together before he had passed away in 2002 for a couple of years, so we’d go out to meet those people because I couldn’t find as many people to listen to me right that early in my career. And it was just great. He was there kind of doing the financial planning; I would talk about the investment options and different things. And we really did learn a lot from each other. And I was able to really get even closer to my dad than I was even before we were able to do that because it was traveling places in cars, getting lost, talking about did we let the client talk enough. Yeah, so that’s really where all that comes from. And fast forward, there was a long journey to Balanced Wealth Management, which I started in 2014. And kind of where we are today. So those are the origins, and I try to stick to those. My dad’s biggest word in life was balance. I tried to find some fancy words – he wasn’t fancy, I stuck with balance.
Kristen Oakley:
I like that. I was going to ask you – the concept for today’s show. The title of the show is Retire with Balance. How do you define that? What does that look like for your clients?
Rob Auclair:
So I come from two educators. I have a mom that was a high school special ed teacher and a dad that was a professor of Providence College. Everything I ever did was, this is how it happens. And you had to go through how you had to learn; you had to learn everything; they didn’t just tell you, but this is how it’s done. So I think when it came to balance, it was about knowing your options. And then being able to find the right balance. It wasn’t to be all one way and all another – find the in-between place. And where I found my role is, know those two limits and find the right space in there for each client, which is unique to them. Right? So is it a little bit more this way, and it’s different for every client? Well,
Kristen Oakley:
That ties in perfectly to the topic for today’s show. We’re gonna be talking about asset allocation and how do you know if you’re properly diversified? This is a really important thing to understand. Because Rob you and I have talked about this off the show. But in my work as a financial educator, I’ve traveled around the country and making presentations on retirement planning. It’s interesting, a lot of folks actually think they’re diversified. But when they actually come in and sit down and engage in the financial planning process, I know you see this a lot, folks, you help them understand that they’re actually not diversified. Because it’s not just about having stocks and bonds. It’s about making sure that you are diversified by asset class. So we’re going to dive into that important conversation today. So where do you want to start with this important conversation of asset allocation?
Rob Auclair:
So I think I always start this out; a lot of people always think, oh, it’s all about the stocks that I pick or the mutual fund that I pick. And it’s really about the asset classes that you pick, large cap, mid cap, small cap. So it has a lot less to do with that. And there was a study that was done back in the early ’80s. And it was done by these three educators called Brinson, hood, and B Bauer. And what they found out was 92% of the reason of why someone does good or bad has to do with their asset allocation. So asset allocation, I say is king, that’s first it’s kind of the plain vanilla, the boring part, but then after that, we will select our funds, but those only had to do with 4% Whether you did good or bad. And then the little remaining part had to do with the market timing. So it all comes down to asset allocation.
Rob Auclair:
And so when we deal with clients, they’ll come in and they’ll think that they’re allocated correctly, but it’s certainly a lot different In the case of reality. So what I like to do is I have a slide that really kind of breaks this down. And I’ve been using this probably for, I don’t know how many years. But when we look at the different asset classes out there, there’s large cap, mid cap, and small cap. And those are US equities. So when we look at those large cap just means a lot of capital, those are companies that have $10 billion or more, they’re companies like Microsoft, Exxon. And then as we move down, it gets riskier. So we look at small cap, which in that case, we’re going to be smaller companies that have $2 billion, or under, so just understand top to bottom, less risk to more risk. And then there’s two other categories down there. And those are non-US asset classes, international and emerging markets international are your well-established countries where the company is domiciled Brazil, Germany, Italy, compared to emerging markets, Pakistan, India those are like the last 10 to 15 years been a lot more aggressive and newer to the scene, right. And then finally, in that box there on the right, we’ve got bonds. And so in that box there, that’s really where you have some safety there. So when people look at this, and we can come back off the screen here, when you look at your asset allocation, and you see large cap, mid cap, and small cap, just to understand the risk associated with it. I have so many people come in that think that they’re well balanced, and then all of a sudden, it’s either all in cash, and they’re like, Oh, I never invested it, or they come in, and they were very aggressive when they were young and left it that way. And it just stayed aggressive. So to me, that’s an important piece; we got to get asset allocation down,
Kristen Oakley:
right. Yeah. And I think another misconception I’ve seen folks come in, and they might have five different mutual funds. And they’re like, Oh, I’m diversified because I have five different mutual funds. But then when you dive into it, you realize each of these mutual funds is invested in the exact same equities. So you’re really not diversified in that case.
Rob Auclair:
So we actually see sometimes someone says, I’ve got those five mutual funds, and they’re all large cap, right. And so he said, Well, you’re diversified within large cap, but you kind of can do that with one fund; you don’t need five, but then recovers bear when it comes down to the mid to small and the International absolute. And that perfection of trying to find that can be very difficult. And that’s an opportunity where someone there are a lot of online tools, but also working with a professional, whether someone like myself, or someone that you have, as a resource, understand what you have, so many people walk in, and it’s just not what they perceive to have.
Kristen Oakley:
Absolutely. Well, then it’s not just about the asset allocation, but obviously how you invest that allocation. So what are a couple of other things that you always look for to help people to enact for themselves when it comes to making sure they’re invested properly?
Rob Auclair:
So I think the first thing is to make sure you’re spread across that board. And how do you do that go into your especially like a retirement plan, you kind of click into that. And you see what is large cap, what is mid cap? What is small cap, dollar cost averaging, we talked about when it comes to investing, if you have new money, don’t just throw it in one, throw it in kind of all of them and kind of invest that over time. So what I really do think is that this opportunity really is something that if this is confusing to someone, and even if it’s not, a lot of people come to us and just say listen, I don’t have the time to do it. And what we were able to kind of do for them is set something up, where we can take a look at their current portfolio, hold it up to them, show them how much you do have in each, give them like a score of almost like a speed limit. Where Yeah, that’s 70 to 100. Zero. And does that feel right? And then hopefully give them some guidance around that.
Kristen Oakley:
For sure. Well, I know that’s what you offer for folks as part of this show: that complimentary written financial plan. So if you’re watching out there and you’re thinking, “Gosh, this is something I want to know. I want to know how I’m currently invested. Could I be doing something differently? Should I be doing something differently?” If someone’s out there asking themselves that question, what would you say to them?
Rob Auclair:
Yeah, so I think again, there’s three pieces to what we do. So if someone is interested in finding out more about this, we have people come in, and what we’re able to do is hold stuff up. Number one, what do you have? You need to understand, “Alright, this is what I have. My house is worth this, my 401k might be worth this, I’ve got savings accounts, I owe this on my mortgage,” setting that up. Then it’s actually taking all your statements. And then what we’re able to do is hold up to how much do you have in each one of those major asset classes? And what sort of risk are you taking? And then the third piece, which is really the eye-opener that people say to us, “Listen, like I have so many… so many people just therapy say this is real Rob, the balance sheet and the snapshot not it’s fine, but what’s real is you have now plotted out for me what is going to come in from Social Security or pensions, what I need, and is the amount that I’ve saved gonna run out or not run out, and when’s that going to happen?” And what we’re able to do at that point is kind of set the stage for here’s some good information for you. And we’ve got a chance now to get to know you and sit down with you and we let people walk away from that appointment saying listen, I’ve got the information I need, but Balanced Wealth is a great place for me to do work we hope that they do call us back but it really gives us not just try not to be too salesy with it just say we educate you and now put those those tools in your hand. And if we can help you, that’d be a great opportunity. Absolutely.
Kristen Oakley:
Well, thank you so much for that. I know that it’s so important to look at things from a comprehensive, holistic perspective. And so if you’re wanting another set of eyes to come in, look at your financial situation to see if you’re on track with your investments to be able to reach your retirement goals, we encourage you pick up the phone, call that number on the bottom of your screen 888-398-2001 And that will get you connected to be able to come in and receive your complimentary written financial plan from Rob and the team at Balanced Wealth Management. You’re also welcome to take out your smartphone, you can simply open up that camera app, just point it click and scan that QR code down in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen that will take you over to a landing page ask you a few short simple questions, and then a member of the team will reach out to you to schedule your complimentary visit that way as well. More on this important discussion Are you truly diversified? Find out when we come back.
Rob Auclair:
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Kristen Oakley:
Welcome back to Retire with Balance. I’m your host, Kristen Oakley joined by Rob Auclair. He is a financial planner at Balanced Wealth Management. And we are talking today Rob about the importance of being properly diversified. I know that that’s something that when a lot of folks come in and meet with you for the first time, they find out that they may not be as diversified as they thought that they were. Because at the end of the day, it really comes down to asset allocation. And that’s what we were talking about in the first segment. Obviously, it also has to do with fund selection. Yes. So talk a little bit more about that.
Rob Auclair:
Yeah before I get to the fund selection, again, to reiterate that plain vanilla diversification, why it’s so important is this. So we had a client back in the early 90s. That came to us and said, I don’t understand why have lost so much money in the last six or seven years. And what had actually happened was, they were well-balanced probably in the late 80s. And then what happened is, as the 90s went through small caps had this enormous growth, that then automatically turn the portfolio into having almost 45% in small cap, which made his portfolio extremely risky. When the market went down in the 2000. Early 2000s. He plummeted. And when he plummeted, he didn’t know why. And so then when he came to us, he said, I don’t know why this happened. I want to make sure it doesn’t happen again. And it wasn’t a single investment fund what it was was the wrong asset allocation, and that he wasn’t annually rebalancing. So I think this is a really, really good opportunity to find out if you’re if you are balanced correctly.
Kristen Oakley:
And then kind of Yeah, about rebalancing quick because I think like you hear that term, but a lot of folks don’t really understand what that is or why it’s so important. So unpack that for us. Yeah. So
Rob Auclair:
I think let’s just generally talk about it. Let’s say you had equities of 75% and bonds of 25%. And the stock market does really well. Well, now it may end up being 90% into equities and 10% into bonds. And then if you think that your allocation was 7525 minutes, 90, right, and you didn’t do anything you need to rebalance. So what a lot of people can do within their 401k is they do have auto-rebalance. And it’s as simple as checking a box. So they’re trying to make it easier where you can rebalance it monthly, quarterly, semiannually and annually. And you can choose which one you want to do. And again, there’s no real facts right now to say which one would be better. The idea is you just don’t want things to get out of hand. Exactly right. turn into something that it’s not
Kristen Oakley:
right. I used to call that the Pac Man portfolio. If you get 90% of you think of it like a pie chart, right? You have something that looks like a Pac Man. But the problem is and this is why so many people were so financially devastated with oh, wait, they had never rebalanced or their portfolio had grown too much in equities. And then when equities took that hit wham you’re losing a huge chunk of your life savings overnight.
Rob Auclair:
Yeah, yeah. So I would like to talk a little bit kind of about choosing funds, even though it only makes up 4%. Apparently, of you know what you do, it probably makes up more than that. But when we look at diversification, that’s first but then we want to go into how do we choose a mutual fund and at Balanced Wealth Management, we don’t look at just a five-star mutual fund and say, “Oh, that’s the one, let’s put it in the portfolio,” we actually have 20 data points that we use, we have a CFA, which is a certified financial analyst that teaches at Providence College. And she actually teaches portfolio theory, that actually helps us build those portfolios for our clients. So we get that asset allocation down first. And then we want to select the best representation for a fund and each one of those boxes. And so one of the things that I like to do is, even if you didn’t have a professional you’re working with, for free, you can go on to morningstar.com fidelity.com any of the major mutual fund companies out there, and you can look at your fund itself. So if you take a look at the next slide, which is just a few factors, there’s a lot on that screen there, I know, but I’ll just go with the highlighted ones. So when we look at this, this is a mutual fund. And one of the highlighted areas here that you always want to look at is something called beta. And all that saying is, is that if the stock market, the S&P 500 is represented by one, and it’s less than one, it’s less risky than the market, right? If it’s greater than one for beta, it’s riskier than the market. So that’s a good thing to kind of look at one thing that we really like to look at are these two bottom pieces here, which are the upside and downside risk. And so when we look at an upside risk here, which is 111. What that means is if we took the last 10 years, we took every positive day, average 10% in the market, but this did 111% of that, that means this one did 11.1%. So that’s a good thing. But we talked about balance, right? So you don’t want to go totally crazy on the top side, it’d be better for it to be higher. But what comes with that when the market swings,
Kristen Oakley:
you get that awful the downside. Right?
Certainly, here’s the continuation:
Rob Auclair:
Right. So then off of the slide, the last thing is downside, which shows a 73. In that downside really is saying that if the market in down days went down negative 10, this only went down negative 7.3. So we want to try to find that. I’m quirky about it, but we’re every answer is ballots, right? But it’s like, how do you find that balance? So when we’re actually selecting that mutual fund, it is very, very important that you make sure that you don’t just look at what did the return do in the last six months or 12 months. And I really think this is an opportunity that if we can share with you our process, we can also help you initially from a macro standpoint of if you do come in it is hey, this is what you have sometimes that in itself, a lot of people that I just I know what I had, but it was never all in one place. This is great. Number two is then taking a look at their asset allocation, but also looking at every one of their funds and giving them nothing too complicated. But three or four pages of this is what you have, here’s what we see, make some high-level recommendations. And then the third piece that they would get is that financial plan. So that is something that is complimentary, we find again, it’s a way for us to really get to know our clients, for them to ask questions to feel comfortable before they have to make a really important choice if they choose to work with a financial advisor.
Kristen Oakley:
Absolutely. And so much goes into that. And I know that you are passionate about this and making sure that folks have all the information and education that they need so that you at home can make better decisions with your hard-earned money. So again, we encourage you to pick up the phone call that number on the bottom of your screen 888-398-2001 To get your very own complimentary written financial plan from Rob and the team at Balanced Wealth Management. Or again, you’re welcome to click that QR code on the bottom right-hand corner, and that will get you connected as well. When we come back, I’m going to ask Rob about what he does for his clients in volatile times. We all need to be prepared for market volatility. Are you prepared? Stay with us to find out.
Commercial Break:
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Kristen Oakley:
Welcome back to retire with balance. I’m Kristen Oakley here with Rob Auclair. We are talking today about proper diversification: How do you know if you’re truly diversified and how can you best be prepared for market volatility which all the signs are pointing to we are headed for some more tumultuous time really. We don’t know when but I mean, the market only does one of two things, right? It goes up and it goes down. And the key is part of this strategy of helping people retire with balance to be prepared for those tumultuous times. So I’m curious, because one of the things we’ve talked about is the fund selection. And one of the points I wanted to make, and I don’t know if this was the case for that story that you shared earlier of that client who didn’t understand why they were losing so much money. But on top of how they were invested, there’s fees associated with different funds and different kinds of investments. So my guess is that he was also being hit with fees, even when his accounts were going down, you still have to pay those fees. Right.
Rob Auclair:
So back then things were a little different than the landscape. But I think fees are important to kind of have a general understanding. And a lot of the way in which it works now is you’re paying usually a percentage of the assets you have. So it’d be pretty standard that if someone had 250,000, and they’re being charged 1%, that they’re paying $2,500. Now, what does that include is very unique to the advisor, right? Sometimes it just takes into account how you’re allocated, what funds you choose, others may add tax advice, financial planning, and those pieces and that is a model that we run under, we try to be very comprehensive. And that is how we do that. But there are outside of working with an advisor. And even with some advisors, they have loads are commissionable products. And so you need to be aware of that they’ve got what they call A, B and C shares. And just very quickly in a share, you can be paying upwards of almost 6% on a purchase, you put in $10,000, and you’re paying $600 For that within the mutual fund that a lot of folks don’t even realize, right. So that’s what I’ve just talked about is kind of that top layer of what you’re paying for perceived advice, right? Yeah. And then inside of it, if you think of a mutual fund, they’re buying and selling stocks all the time, you got to pay that person. So if balanced wealth management is up here, and then we’re choosing let’s just say a Fidelity Investment, then fidelity also has its fee that you will never see unless you read your little
Kristen Oakley:
That prospectus that most people never read, right?
Rob Auclair:
Right. That’s an important piece of what we want to make sure that you’re aware of. So we try to always be lower than the average in the category meaning that if an average fee is point five, we want to be south of that. And just be aware of it. And again, it has become better. If you went back 1520 years ago, you saw the heavy fees up top, you saw heavy fees inside, because people are now everyone’s more transparent people. You know, look at it more I’m sure you’ve seen that kind of construct.
Kristen Oakley:
I learned a long time ago that you always want to ask any financial advisor you’re considering working with is what is the total cost I will incur from working with you. Because to your point, there’s all those hidden fees, a lot of times that folks aren’t even aware of so important to know for sure.
Rob Auclair:
So we had talked about in a down market, right? And so when you’re in a down market it’s something where you either want to run away, or you just you kind of like just grin and bear and be like, yep I know you guys told me to stay with it. Right. So I wanted to kind of bring this together with an illustration of what would you do if you’re in retirement? And you’re taking money out? But the markets going down? So how do we look at that? So I
Kristen Oakley:
You’re withdrawing – you’re in that distribution phase, right?
Rob Auclair:
Yeah. So if we look here on screen we kind of talked about this, on the left side of your screen, you look at the asset allocation, let’s say this person was 50%. In the market, you’d see it up there and those large-cap mid-caps. And then at the bottom, you’d see that there was 500,000 in the bonds. And if the person needed $10,000 a month, they could proportionately be taking $5000 from each of the buckets there. So now let’s go up to the top right blue, and that would show is let’s say that the peak of the market was a million dollars on the top left of that little screenshots, right, yeah, the blue chart, and then it comes down to minus 20% or more, when would it come back to the million dollars if you never took out or put back in? If we looked historically, every time the market went minus 20 or more, for over 90 years, it takes at least 22 months on average can be more can be a little bit less. So going back to our example. Now, if the market goes down, we need to protect what’s in the big box over there, the 500,000. And how do we do that we need to take it from the bottom box that hasn’t lost as much or hopefully hasn’t lost anything. Right. So now if you need to 10,000 a month either you need to take a lot less, or in this case 10,000 A month means about 120,000 a year how long would that bottom box last? And so we can see in here it definitely lasts more than 22 months it’s probably double that. So this example here just shows you need to make sure that when markets do go down that you make adjustments. And again you want to be smart about it. You don’t want to like just run for it. You have a plan but you can start to say I’m taking withdrawals. Let’s take it from what’s last less
Kristen Oakley:
right. And that’s just smart. Right? But you need some sometimes we’re too close to our own stuff. I think emotional decisions can really play a factor in this for folks when they see the market going down that’s never a fun thing. So how do you help talk folks off the ledge when the markets are going crazy?
Rob Auclair:
You So I have to say, I think we educate upfront, we’re a lot of people will tell us, Oh, I knew that this would come at some point, you told us this, and we’re kind of ready. But the other piece too is there are other vehicles that we use out there. It’s not just stocks and bonds, there’s many vehicles out there where you can protect your principal, and especially right now you can get unbelievably great fixed rates. And what we’re able to do is say, Listen the investment world is not just made up of stocks and bonds, it’s made up of a lot of different things. So there’s a lot of vehicles out there that will use that a lot people in 256 percent return right now, those can change subject to interest rates. But there are some fantastic ways that you can lessen your anxiety. And I think we try to prepare clients, and we try to reduce their anxiety. And I think this is a good opportunity that if that is something where you have this anxiety, here’s a way to hopefully take it down. I always say when you reduce your anxiety, it’s about knowing what you have. So by meeting with us, we can take a look at your balance sheet, take a look at your assets, your liabilities, we then would move into the investments, are they accurately diversified? Do you have the right funds? And then finally, are you ever going to run out of money and at different rates of return, understanding that it’s so so important that when people see that, they will tell us time and time again, Rob, I came to see you that one time and that’s all what I remember, is I could retire, I wasn’t going to eat cat food. I had clients that said it finally felt better it was because there was a little bit of education, but a little bit of holding it up and understanding it. And I think when you understand anything financial or not, you feel better about it,
Kristen Oakley:
for sure. And there’s such a peace of mind that comes when you have a plan. It’s kind of like if you’re going to do a road trip, and you have to know where you’re starting from, but you also have to know where you’re headed. And then you have to have that plan of how to get there, right. And that’s what you’re really helping devise for folks. And one thing you said that I want to make sure we touch on as well, that there’s other investment vehicles out there. And because you are independent, and the team at Balanced Wealth Management is independent, you’re not beholden to any one set of products out there. You’re able to look and see, okay, what would in fact, be in someone’s best interest and then enact a financial plan? Incorporate–
Rob Auclair:
Right. So we take that fiduciary responsibility, which is a huge word, and people will ask that, are you a fiduciary? Yes. it’s very loosely defined, but fiduciary will not really it is. Are we independent, we’re not getting kickbacks from anything. It’s a whether we do this or this, we get paid the same. It’s what you pay us, right?
Kristen Oakley:
And you have that legal obligation. Always serve the client’s best interest, which I know is your heartbeat. And that’s what you want to do for folks too. Well, great. Well, I’ve enjoyed this discussion today so much any final parting words for our audience today?
Rob Auclair:
Oh, I would just say make sure you know what you have. And that’s the most important thing and don’t be scared of it.
Kristen Oakley:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I’m so grateful that you’re here being able to serve the community of Rhode Island. We appreciate you watching again, that number to call to get your very uncomplimentary written financial plan.
The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. While our best intentions are to provide accurate and timely information, you should always consult with retirement, tax, and legal professionals prior to taking any action.