Is It Too Late To Sell?

Well the answer is not easy for many people and the problem is that its not a option for many people who rely on their portfolio for income. In particularly income from stock dividends. Since many of these dividends have been slashed or disappeared all together, seniors and others living off this income are forced into two choices, live on less money or sell assets off. Times is one asset they can sell as I mentioned in my last post about selling covered calls to raise income from stock investments. Stocks are a gamble, maybe your odds are a little better than the slot machines I have shown but they still involve a great deal of risk.

This downturn should remind us all how important it is to prepare for retirement and its not just about saving as much as possible. Portfolios must be managed so that stock investments play a large role early on but as the years roll on and retirement becomes closer your portfolio should rely less and less on equities. I believe unfortunately many of those who were retired had far to much of their money in equities. Equities are a gamble no matter how good a company looks today it is simply impossible to predict many factors that could happen. Even if you have correctly identified a company with a great product, in a growth market; tomorrow that product could be obsolete thanks to technology. Than there are factors outside of the product market that you can not control. Lawsuits over trademarks and other issues can and have bankrupted companies. These type of issues come down to management. Before you invest in any company you have to ask yourself, do you have faith in the people resonsible for running the company day to day. You are handing these people your hard earned money, so take a interest in what they are doing instead of just tossing those annual reports into the recycle bin.