It was never a formal New Year's Resolution, more my usual organization of data being applied to a new area. I finally got around to organizing my Roth-IRA statements of the past several years and put them on a single 4-column ledger page to see the changes in valuations. What struck me was not so much the precipitous fall in the IRA's value from the Lehman Bros. collapse in Septmember 2008 to about March 2009 and another good-sized dip which occurred over a several month period last year but the fact that my IRA's financial adviser, a man who actually draws a fee for keeping this account in my name did nothing to preserve its value during this time...nothing at all. What the fuck?
I'm not saying he should be a dictator and buy/sell the IRA's shares without telling me (though in this instance it would have made him a financial hero) but he could have called or sent an e-mail advising me (after all, he is an adviser) the benefits of moving my holdings into cash for a while, but I got nothing. And before anyone tells me that I was supposed to call my adviser to suggest this myself, might I remind you that I am paying him an annual fee to be the account's financial adviser. If I am supposed to be doing all the research and calling in to have shares sold/purchased myself...what do I need him for?
Now, I'm not expecting miraculous timing on his part, but even some off timing would mean my Roth-IRA would have considerably more value today than it actually does.
I have this feeling that if I were to complain, the conversation would go exactly like this one from the Simpsons when Bart employed Milhouse to be the night watchman for a run-down factory he had purchased in a police auction for a dollar. Bart leaves for the night and returns to a collapsed factory in the morning. He then exclaims to his friend:
Bart: Milhouse, I thought you were the night watchman!
Milhouse: I was watching. First it started falling, then it fell down.
Grrr......
1 comment:
Yup. We are in the process of pulling our 401K out of the mutual fund our previous employer had it in, that has continually fallen. We are putting the little bit that's left into a Roth IRA. Of course how long it will be until we have to pull that money out to survive is an unknown at this point, but hopefully we pull out of this spiral (personally) before we get that far. Running out of time...
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