Author Archives: David John Marotta

It is important to remaining disciplined during volatile markets.

“Better is having a financial advisor who gets to know you personally and manages your finances according to your specific values.”

This letter came with a large bold “YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW” notice along with a 5 week deadline for compliance.

It is commonplace for special interest groups to use lobbyists to gain control of their own industry’s regulation. This failure where interests group seizes control of a governmental power is called “regulatory capture.”

You should not trust a point in time fiduciary for even a single heart beat.

There is no such thing as saving money buying something. You can go broke “saving money” this way.

“Think of a stock as a machine that generates cash every few months.” Smaller companies that you have never heard of usually have a better return than the better known larger companies.

This Bear market has one of the largest single day losses.

The burden of mandatory government data collection should be opposed whenever possible.

Our firm has become known for our method of computing maximum safe withdrawal rates in retirement. Our safe withdrawal rates are based on having what we believe to be optimum asset allocation targets.

Even though we recommend Vanguard as a custodian for our readers who are just starting out with investing, they are not our first choice when it comes to Donor Advised Funds.

The SEC released an embarrassingly poor 1,000 page document.

On April 10, 2018, David John Marotta appeared on Radio 1070 WINA’s Schilling Show to discuss the question: What is worth using the government’s threat of violence?

In 2007 the Financial Planning Association won a lawsuit that it filed against the SEC to force them to enforce the registration provisions of the 1940 Investment Advisors Act. The law still isn’t enforced.

Although volatility is often unwelcome by investors, it can provide profitable returns.

“One principal purpose of the accredited investor concept is to identify persons who can bear the economic risk of investing in these unregistered securities.”

Determining what constituted a safe withdrawal rate was one of the first questions I tackled. After a year and a half of study on the question, I had realized the inadequacy of the 4% rule and found a methodology which provides more useful when advising clients.

This post explains the methodology for building a portfolio limited to the commission-free exchange traded funds (ETFs) on the eTrade platform.

We recommend this gone fishing portfolio for accounts hosted at eTrade.

In general, the statements should match, but matched accounting down the penny cannot easily be achieved.

Unfortunately, no amount of rules-based compliance can force a company to follow the principles-based fiduciary standard.

“A conventional wisdom withdrawal strategy will almost always leave a lot of money on the table.”

This 2002 post reminds us, “If you rely on a commission-based financial product salesperson, you will probably be sold the wrong kind of funds.” It was also the first article of ours to be featured in the “Charlottesville Business Journal.”

Recommending clean shares does not free the industry from conflicts of interest.

Here is the list of broker-dealers who said the CFP should not expect those with the CFP® mark to not mislead consumer.

SEC-mandated titling will not be enough to save unsuspecting consumers from non-fiduciary financial professionals.

On March 13, 2018, David John Marotta appeared on Radio 1070 WINA’s Schilling Show to discuss finding a life you love. Also in this show: what David Marotta thinks about his own life calling and a discussion of healthcare and insurance in retirement.

It will be a welcome change when the CFP Board can force CFP® mark holders to remove misleading content from their websites.

For most families, the largest purchase they make will be their house. This 2011 post reminds us that the house you and your family live in is not an investment, but real estate can be.

A question from our readers, “Should I choose to have dividends reinvested or should I receive them in cash and then reinvest them myself?”

It is lazy of the IRS to put the burden of proving innocence on the taxpayer while punishing them as though they are guilty.

Compliance is never simple. Thousands of hours have been spent because the SEC refused to clarify what they expect.

An article in the Wall Street Journal questions the value of regular rebalancing, but regular rebalancing is a key component of modern portfolio theory.

Our primary gone-fishing portfolio includes investments which may have a trading fee in order to invest at the custodian. How much of an investment is worth paying a trading fee?

On February 13, 2018, David John Marotta appeared on Radio 1070 WINA’s Schilling Show to discuss recent market volatility, what you should do in response to the volatility, what Freedom Investing is, and what the Marotta’s Gone-Fishing Portfolios are.

Even very volatile investments may, in moderate amounts, reduce a portfolio’s volatility if the investment is not correlated with the rest of the portfolio’s components.

Talking about the question “How should you manage your money in 2018?” this show covers a lot of ground over 23 minutes of conversation.

Financial planning can be romantic. As this 2011 article reminds us, “nothing is more romantic than planning how to realize your shared hopes and dreams for the future.”

Or do they go up indefinitely, albeit interrupted by some significant corrections?

I have gradually been writing a series of articles on each Bear Market to show how quickly they correct and how high the subsequent Bull Market rises.

If you ever wondered how the stock market works, this 2006 article is for you. It is both the personal story of David Marotta’s maternal grandfather, Donald Mortlock, and an explanation of how the market of the stock market is made.

This year, we have made three significant changes and are offering four different gone fishing portfolios based on which custodian hosts your accounts.

This gone fishing portfolio is our default portfolio which can be used at any custodian.

We recommend this gone fishing portfolio for accounts hosted at Vanguard.

We recommend this gone fishing portfolio for accounts hosted at TD Ameritrade.

We recommend this gone fishing portfolio for accounts hosted at Charles Schwab.

Being able to lower total fees while investing part of the portfolio in slightly higher cost country specific exchange traded funds and being able to use exchange traded funds with strategic factors and add a monthly dynamic tilt is a significant accomplishment.

There are reasons to have the stability of fixed income investments for a portion of your portfolio, but switching to bonds because you are afraid of stocks is not one of them.

This 2004 post has ten timeless rules for small businesses to maintain their financial balance.

We have all seen mutual fund ads stating this Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclaimer, “Past performance is no guarantee of future results.” Let’s take a closer look at it.