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Financial Doctors Prescribe New Year Check Up

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By LAURA CONE

The Sun

Published: December 3, 2008

Richard J. Rios, the treasurer for the Sun City Center Chamber of Commerce, said most people use the New Year as an excuse to meet with their financial advisor for a yearly check-up.

But with the volatile stock market and the nation's current fiscal crisis, financial advisors such as Rios said clients have not needed an excuse to look at their portfolios.

"At the end of the year, it's very important to sit down with your financial advisor," Rios said. "I could not imagine going it alone in a market like this. It's extremely important to have a financial professional."

Rios, a vice president for Morgan Stanley in Tampa, said many of his clients overestimated their risk tolerance.

"When they experience actual risk, they realize that is not an appropriate level for them," he said.

Gary Cotter, a certified financial planner in Sun City Center, said he also works with clients who are having their risk tolerance level tested.

"The question on everyone's mind is: Will it keep going down and when it finally reaches bottom, how long will it take to come back?" Cotter said. "No one can answer those questions. If things have gone down more than you can stand, it's time to get more conservative."

Cotter of Cotter Financial said it's difficult to do, but people need to detach from their emotions when it comes to the stock market.

"When they are dealing with their own emotions, they will invest in the stock market when they can see it's gone up a lot," Cotter said. "Then, when it goes down, they get frightened and decide they want to sell, which is exactly the opposite. This will turn out in retrospect to be a great time to buy, not to sell."

Cotter said his best advice is for people to turn off their televisions.

"Someone gave me a really good analogy," Cotter said. "If you have ever been on a cruise and hit rough seas, the worst thing you can do is look down at the waves. That's sure to make you sick. That's what people are doing when they turn on the television and see all these talking heads saying how awful everything in. It is not the end of the world. We are going to come back from it."

For more information on Rios, call (813) 286-5681. For more information on Cotter, call (813) 634-2000.

Editor Laura Cone may be reached at lcone@mediageneral.com.

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