Central Penn Business Journal

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Don't be tempted to burn your portfolio with exchange-traded funds

Written by Tim Decker, AIF®. Posted in Central Penn Business Journal

One of the more striking developments in investment products in the past decade has been an explosion in the use of ETFs—exchange-traded funds.

According to Morningstar, assets in ETFs have grown to more than $2.1 trillion. About 1,400 different ETFs now exist.

Some ETFs are similar to generic index mutual funds, as they are passively managed. They track an index, like the S&P 500, to capture the returns of that index, minus expenses and trading costs. Like some no-load index funds, these ETFs can have expenses that are quite low.

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Mistakes can cost you plenty when it comes to your financial investments

Written by Tim Decker, AIF®. Posted in Central Penn Business Journal

Successful investing is rare. One thing that the majority of experts can agree on is that this success comes less from makng brilliant moves than from minimizing errors. In tennis, this is referr3ed to as limiting unforced errors.

There are some classic mistakes that you want to avoid. Some of these mistakes simply stem from not following sound basic principles. To avoid costly blunders, keep these points in mind:

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Instead of panicking about your investments, prepare your portfolio

Written by Tim Decker, AIF®. Posted in Central Penn Business Journal

Many investors make the mis-take of selling investments in a panic. Most often, this means selling at a loss.

But there are ways to avoid ending up in this situation. The best is to design your investment portfolio so that, in the long run, it doesn’t matter whether some of your assets yo-yo in value here and there. By diversifying your portfolio among different asset classes, you can ensure that your losses in one type of investment are buoyed by stability—or even gains—in other types. Thus, you don’t lose sleep over a temporary decline in value, and you can resist the urge to sell in a panic.

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Apply These Basic Principles to Reach your Financial Goals

Written by Tim Decker, AIF®. Posted in Central Penn Business Journal

Much has been said and written on the secrets of successful investing. Yet these prescriptions are anything but secret—there’s nothing new under the sun—and these so-called secret strat-egies can’t be counted on to produce results.

There is no one thing, no silver bullet, that can guarantee suc-cessful investment returns. People who look for a silver bullet are look-ing for an easy way to achieve investing success. But there simply is no easy way.

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On the Air

newsradio-WHP-webTim Decker hosts the weekly radio show “Financial Freedom” on WHP 580 AM Harrisburg every Saturday at 10:00 am Eastern.

He brings his extensive knowledge and over 28 years of experience to the discussion of current financial and wealth management topics. Each show also includes a Q&A session when Tim provides straightforward, unbiased answers to questions from callers. This is the program that represents your best interests, not Wall Street's.

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The Sleep-Well-at-Night Investor

The-Sleep-Well-At-Night-Investor

ISI Financial Group helps clients take all necessary steps to properly develop and implement a holistic financial plan using evidence-based, time-tested strategies centered around financial science. In his book, “The Sleep-Well-At-Night Investor,” Tim Decker shows readers how misinformation from the mutual fund industry has created widespread harm amongst investors. The book also discusses the temptation to think of investing like gambling, and the tragedy of gambling away savings and security under the guise of investing.

Buy the Book!