Things are going quite well for New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski these days. On the field, he is on pace for career highs in virtually every offensive category. Off the field, the fiscally responsible Gronkowski has parlayed his money management skills into a new partnership with Capital One Bank. The new personal finance program, fittingly titled #GRONKonomics, will allow the 26-year-old to challenge others on their "financial fitness." Tips include setting short-term goals and setting up automatic transfers into a savings account. The partnership comes after news recently broke that Gronkowski hasn't spent a penny of his NFL earnings since entering the league, living only off the money from his endorsement deals.
For the last several years, the financial services industry has made it a priority to educate advisors on how best to serve female investors with communication styles and information that is, supposedly, better suited to women. In fact, 87 percent of advisors give themselves an ‘A’ or ‘B’ grade in understanding female investors, according to a recent survey by State Street Global Advisors. Yet only 39 percent of female investors feel understood by the investment industry. Why the disconnect? Turns out you all those directives may have missed the larger issue, and that is that using stereotypes to tweak a service offering misses the human element. “The effort to better understand female investors has, regrettably, often focused on comparisons of men and women. This not only tends to perpetuate stereotypes but it also overlooks the individual needs and characteristics of female investors,” the report said.
Traditional Financial Planning is Failing
Traditional financial plans work on the assumption that the next 30 years or so are going to look remarkably similar to the past 30 years (at least as far as markets and volatility are concerned). But those assumptions may hurt those who retired in the past 5-10 years, writes Jeff Voudrie on See It Market. Voudrie says that financial plans need to include situations and market conditions that were previously thought to have only a very low chance of occuring. For instance, traditional financial plans build in an estimated annual rate of return of 8 percent or greater for stocks and more than 4 percent for bonds. It's a fair bet that the next few years won't see those kinds of returns, with the global economy slowing and many countries on the brink of recession (the U.S. included, he argues).
Sixth Grader Wins SIFMA Essay Contest
While the baseball team from Queens, N.Y. was unable to win the World Series, a sixth grader from the same borough in New York City was named the champion of the SIFMA Foundation’s national essay competition, InvestWrite. Svetlana Russell created “Intresta Saviora,” a superhero with powers to ward off evil forces that trick investors into squandering money. Russell also participated in Foundation’s “Stock Market Game,” where she used a virtual $100,000 to create a portfolio with shares of Chipotle, Apple, Google and Yahoo, saying she subscribes to Warren Buffett’s philosophy of “investing in what you know." Russell told Yahoo Finance that she wasn’t interested in finance at first, but started researching more just to get out of last place in the game. “As I did more research, I got more interested because this what you have to do in the real world,” Russell said. “And investing can pay for your family, your career choice and everything else.
