Farrukh Kazmi investment executive professional offers advices about how to get extra cash today? Despite what talking heads on TV, your neighborhood life insurance salesperson, or ads from financial advisory companies would have you believe, you really don’t need a huge variety of financial products. When you make a plan for your finances in 2021, a great first step would be to minimize complexity. This can mean reducing the number of investments you have, consolidating accounts, or automating your retirement contributions. The main idea, put simply, is to reduce the amount of brain space you devote to managing your financial life and instead focus on the areas of your life that actually do merit attention (areas that only you can define). Below, you’ll find five minimalist tips to declutter your financial life.
The United States is primed for supercharged growth. The recently enacted $1.8 trillion fiscal stimulus package provides another big shot in the arm for the U.S. consumer. And this stimulus comes at a time when the economy should already be re-accelerating as vaccines become broadly available around the middle of the year. With the economy reopening more-completely, we look for pent-up demand to drive a strong bounce in the service sectors. Demand for air travel, for example, is likely to overshoot as families go on vacations again. There is already evidence of this re-opening theme in the data, with sharply higher travel bookings scheduled more than 90 days into the future. Real GDP growth of 7% looks possible for 2021, which would be the best calendar-year outcome since 1984. The good news is that there is spare capacity to absorb much of this above-trend growth. We look for the Fed to keep its benchmark rate at zero until late 2023 or early 2024, which should slow the rise in 10-year yields from here. The industry consensus for GDP and corporate earnings growth is now uniformly optimistic. Rather than focusing on benchmark U.S. equity market exposure—which skews heavily toward the 2020 COVID-19 winners such as mega-cap technology stocks—we continue to see bigger opportunities in the cheaper and more cyclical areas of the equity market. These securities have generally been performing strongly over the last two quarters, but we believe still trade at attractive relative valuations.
That said, gold trounced the S&P 500 in the 10-year period from November 2002 to October 2012, with a total price appreciation of 441.5%, or 18.4% annually. The S&P 500, on the other hand, appreciated by 58% over this period. The point here is that gold is not always a good investment. The best time to invest in almost any asset is when there is negative sentiment and the asset is inexpensive, providing substantial upside potential when it returns to favor, as indicated above.
A cash bank deposit is the simplest, most easily understandable investment asset—and the safest. Not only does it give investors precise knowledge of the interest they’ll earn, but it also guarantees they’ll get their capital back. On the downside, the interest earned from cash stored away in a savings account seldom beats inflation and loses around 2% a year. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have become quite popular since their introduction back in the mid-1990s. ETFs are similar to mutual funds, but they trade throughout the day, on a stock exchange, just like shares of stock. Unlike mutual funds, which are valued at the end of each trading day, ETF values fluctuate intra-day. Farrukh Kazmi is the founder of A&S Asset Management, I am committed to helping people achieve financial freedom by bringing Wall Street experience to the local investor.
Cryptocurrencies are encrypted decentralized digital currencies that are transferred between individuals. These currencies are not tangible and exist only in the electronic from, it is a digital asset that exists and remains as data. They allow a person to send money just like sending an email, much lower transaction times compared to using a bank, minimal fees, no credit cards and no middleman. The joint bookkeeping process is called a “Blockchain”, it is public and is distributed across the network of all the people that have the same coin, for example everybody that has Bitcoin has a copy of the ledger and its transactions, which creates a community of trust. Each cryptocurrency is individually identifiable and programmable based on a very complex digital code.
To keep demand high across generations, Disney Studios carefully restrict the supply of some home release classics. They are locked away in the ‘vault’ for 8-10 years before being released for a short unspecified time. Buy them in this window at normal retail price and you can turn a nice profit when they go off sale for another decade or so. For example, in 2011 you could buy Beauty and the Beast on Blu-ray 3D for just £24.99. In just a couple of years it was on Amazon for a staggering £74.99!
How should you go about finding the right advisor? The first step is to figure out what sort of professional financial help you need. Like many people, some of your deepest financial thinking comes at tax time. So if you just want someone to dole out tax advice and preparation, a good old Certified Public Accountant (CPA) will probably suffice. That CPA may or may not also be a financial advisor. All of our brokerage accounts are held and available for viewing at National Financial Services, a Fidelity Investments Company. Registered Representative of and securities offered through Berthel Fisher & Company Financial Services, Inc. (BFCFS). Member FINRA/SIPC. A&S Asset Management and BFCFS are independent entities. Read additional info on Farrukh Kazmi.
There are two types of people: those who like budgeting and those who don’t. I’m in the latter camp. I’m definitely not a fan of budgeting. I find that budgeting often reinforces a scarcity mindset where you spend so much time cutting back on the small purchases that often bring you the most joy. You track every penny going in and going out and it just takes so much time. But if you’re the type of person who thinks they might be into budgeting, then you should learn how to budget. Instead of budgeting I simply focus on optimizing my three biggest expenses, housing, transportation, and food.
Gold has historically been an excellent hedge against inflation, because its price tends to rise when the cost of living increases. Over the past 50 years investors have seen gold prices soar and the stock market plunge during high-inflation years. This is because when fiat currency loses its purchasing power to inflation, gold tends to be priced in those currency units and thus tends to arise along with everything else. Moreover, gold is seen as a good store of value so people may be encouraged to buy gold when they believe that their local currency is losing value.