Yes, Virginia, there is a Thanksgiving!

<p><span style="font-family:ArialMT;font-size:17px;">Investors these days may be thinking of an empty cupboard rather than a cornucopia these days when it comes to their portfolios. But the market has always recovered in the past, and America’s cupboards still hold a big measure of abundance. So it might be a good time for us to focus on what we have as well as what we need and use this Thanksgiving week and the forthcoming holidays to give thanks and to think carefully about what we should do to secure our financial futures.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:ArialMT;font-size:17px;">1.The Importance of Planning</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:ArialMT;"> Do you have a plan? It is important to set out a strategy for investing that takes three things into consideration: your time frame for investing, your near-term and long-term goals, and your level of risk tolerance.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:ArialMT;">Right now, the market is at a level that would test even the wildest of gamblers. Those who have kept their allocations at the most conservative level are probably sleeping best at night. That means having a greater percentage of your assets in Treasury bonds, CDs, money market funds and bonds or bond funds. Those closest to retirement should already have adjusted their allocations to a more conservative strategy.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:ArialMT;">However, if your long-term goals include building a substantial investment portfolio for retirement, you won’t get there with just Treasuries and CDs. That’s why it&#39;s important to set up a strong base of index funds as the safe foundation for your portfolio. Right now many of those funds are down at a really stomach-churning level. But they’ll come back up when the market recovers, as it always does, and if you’ve diversified into foreign as well as bond index funds, you’ll have a greater measure of stability.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:ArialMT;">Now is the time to look at your assets and your investing strategy and determine if they fit your goals as well as your risk tolerance.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:ArialMT;">2. Harvest Time for Taxes</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:ArialMT;">One thing you may have in abundance now is losses. (Actually, they’re not losses until you sell.) And you can make a little hay off those losses by getting a tax break. You may want to consult your tax person, as well as money manager or financial planner, if you have one. But if it looks as though you have some real losers in your portfolio, which probably won’t come back with an economic recovery, you can deduct your losses if you sell by the end of the year. And if you reach the maximum amount of losses to deduct this year, you can carry them over to the next tax year.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:ArialMT;">3. Keep on Contributing.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:ArialMT;">If you have a 401K, now is not the time to stop contributing. You’ll be taking advantage of two important investing strategies: dollar-cost averaging and buying low. Even though the market may fall further, if you add to your retirement account on a regular basis, you’ll be taking advantage of the low prices. You’ll be driving down your average cost by buying during low market prices. And if your employer adds contributing funds, that’s all the more of an incentive to keep adding to your stash.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:ArialMT;">And if you are giving to charitable causes, now is not the time to stop, either. Studies have shown that people who give regularly to charity tend to manage their budgets better. And when you give, you are acting out of abundance rather than scarcity. An attitude of abundance not only brings peace of mind and contentment, it tends to increase your overall well being – not to mention that of your fellow citizens and the planet. When people act out of scarcity, they tend to take too many risks, and they tend to get too greedy.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:ArialMT;">4. Counting our Blessings</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:ArialMT;">Thanksgiving is a festival that goes back to early harvest rituals, when people gave thanks to a fertile earth by offering fruits of the harvest –hence the symbol of the cornucopia. And as it turns out, psychologists have found that thankful people tend to be the happiest people. So giving thanks is the gift that keeps on giving.<span>   </span></span></p>