Welcome back to our series on annuities! You’ve now made it into the challenge section of our annuity series. In these final pieces, we will take a more subjective approach to annuities. Today, we are going to break down how annuities are typically advertised and what we believe is wrong about some of those marketing methods. We’ll take a look at general annuity marketing and then go through each type of annuity individually.

Today we will cover the last type of annuity: fixed index annuities. This type of annuity guarantees no loss of principal due to the market fluctuations and interest earned is linked to the performance of an external market index. Fixed index annuities first appeared in the 1990’s as an alternative to traditional fixed annuities.

Today we’ll be looking into variable annuities. Variable annuities first appeared in the 1950’s as a way to help combat spending power loss in fixed annuities. Today, they are still used—for the same reason! Let’s dive in!

Today, we will dive into a deeper analysis of fixed annuities. These annuities were the original type of annuity and were used for centuries for funding wars, retirement funds, and taking care of soldier’s families while they were gone. Currently, they are still used by many as a form of fixed retirement income. Let’s get into the details!

Welcome back to our series about annuities! This time, we will be diving a little deeper into the basics of annuities. We will look at how annuities work and some important terms to concentrate on when thinking about an annuity or examining an annuity contract. First, let’s take a look at the history of annuities. They’ve been around for a very long time and have evolved over the many years.

Annuities can be some of the more complex and misunderstood financial products out there. Just start typing the word “annuity” into your search bar and look at the 33 million articles it presents. “Why Annuities are a Bad Idea for Almost Everyone” and “Despite What You’ve Heard, Annuities Aren’t All Bad” were the two of the articles found on Google recently for an annuities search. And so, the contradictions begin.

Now that we have gone over how Creekmur Wealth Advisors approaches, analyzes, and acts on investing, let’s put it all together. In this part, we will examine an individual case study; we will look at one exchange-traded fund and explain how we make an investing decision based on those three steps of analysis. Today, we will be diving deep into the ETF named CIBR!

Now that you’ve had a glimpse at our process for bringing in new investments, it is time to look at a more continuous investing responsibility of our firm: managing our current portfolios. This involves using the various investing actions that can be taken to continuously update and tweak our current holdings. This helps to ensure that our models reflect the current markets and maintain our goal of outperformance. Let’s take a look at these options:

How an individual or advisor conducts an analysis for a potential investment is one of the largest contributors to the long-term success of that particular investment. If someone has a well thought out analysis process, the odds of investing success could greatly increase.

In this next section of our investing series, we will be examining the philosophy side of investing. There are essentially two schools of thought: fundamental and technical. These two approaches to investing are often placed on opposite ends of the spectrum, but most investors fall somewhere in between the two schools. Let’s dive in!