SERIES: Investments Your Stock Broker Never Told You About – 1

Welcome to the latest series at the wildly popular JosephSangl.com – “Investments Your Stock Broker Never Told You About”!

In this series, I will share some “other” ways to invest beyond standard 401(k), 403(b), 457, TSP, Traditional or Roth IRA, mutual fund, stock, or bond investments.

Part One  Why I’m Writing This Series

Until four years ago, the vast majority of my investments were in company stocks, bonds, and mutual funds (which contained company stocks and bonds).  I began investing the day after I graduated from Purdue University.  My employer had a 401(k) available where they matched my investments 100-percent up to 8-percent of my pay.  The match was in company stock, but the money that I personally invested via payroll deduction could be invested into a variety of mutual funds.  These investments grew rapidly.

Then the recession of the late 90’s happened.

Then September 11th happened.

Then 2008 happened.

I personally experienced what many others experienced – my stock market investments all went down in value.  The value of these investments fell even as many of the companies continued to perform extremely well.

“Financial experts” had always advised me to diversify my investments.  The “diversification” options they offered were – surprise, surprise – other stock, bond, and mutual fund investments.  I observed first-hand the axiom that “a rising tide will lift all ships and a lowering tide will lower all ships.”  Therefore, in 2008 I resolved to diversify my investments so that only 50-percent of my portfolio would be in the stock market.  In the process, I discovered incredible investment options that I would never have learned from a stock broker – probably because there were no broker commissions available.

As we embark on this series together, perhaps you would like to see my current investment portfolio HERE.

Read the entire series (available after 9/30/2011)

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