The heart of investing

They say you are what you eat.  If you eat healthier food, you can potentially live longer.  Too many cheeseburgers and there go the arteries!  Lots of veggies and here’s looking a 100 kid! Now what about investing?  Are you what you invest in?

Let’s say your portfolio invests heavily in companies:

• Giving generously to Planned Parenthood
• Proactively lobbying for homosexual “marriage”
• Producing and distributing explicit entertainment
• Producing highly addictive products that are destroying mankind
• Or something else that violates your personal values

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Can you have your cake and eat it too?

Most Americans agree that both principles and values should come before any financial profits. If you, too, agree, then would it not be logical to assume that your investments ought to reflect the principles that you hold important in your daily life? This fundamental concept can be hard to follow in today’s society when it appears that so many of America’s most admired companies put profits before principles. Stories of greed, selfishness, and corruptness fill our TVs, radios, and newspapers and can pollute our perception of corporate America. For every bad story, there are also numerous good ones; you just have to be willing to look for them.

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People often ask me about coaching them on their business and in their personal finances.  Here is how I look at a person’s financial life analyzing ten key areas.

Analyzing the Ten Key Areas of  Your Faith-Based Financial Plan

1: Ownership. God Owns 100% of everything. This i the foundation of any plan determining who is the owner of all that is entrusted to you.

Key Verses:

Haggai 2:8 “The silver is mine and the gold is mine,” declares the Lord.

Psalm 24:1 “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.”

Key Coaching Areas:

• Assess attitudes & motives in your personal financial planning.

• Rather than, “How do I protect/use my money?” the question becomes, “How can I best look after/use God’s money?”

• To rely on God and his provision not on our wealth or our ability to create wealth.

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I wanted to share an article that I thought would interest you from Ron Robbins @ Investing for the Soul.  This article was published at Alrroya.com and deals with the investing behavior of charities.  One would think that most charities would have an ethical investment policy.  Sadly, this is not the case…

Unethical Investing by Charities

By Ron Robins, Founder & Analyst – Investing for the Soul

It is strange that many Western charities still invest their funds in companies whose activities create the very difficulties they are trying to alleviate. But such problems can be minimised if charities create well designed ethical investment policies.

In a 2009 UK survey, the Charity Project and the Charity Finance Directors Group (CFDG) found that of its 164 member charities with investments over £1 million, 60 per cent had an ethical investment policy, while just 25 per cent of smaller charities with investments under £1million had one.
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Register for this FREE educational webinar now!

How to beat Wall Street without selling your soul: An introduction to faith-based investing

Description: If you are interested in learning more about investing in the markets while keeping your faith and values intact, then this free webinar is for you. In this special 90 minute online presentation, economist and author Jerry Robinson is joined by Certified Financial Planner, Jay Peroni to discuss the concept of faith-based investing. In this free online presentation, you will learn:

• How to beat Wall Street without selling your soul…
• How to recession-proof your life before the next collapse.
• The five paths that lead to wealth.
• How to integrate your faith and values into your financial goals.
• The difference between socially-responsible investing and faith-based investing
• How to create a charitable giving plan with advanced gifting strategies.
• And so much more…

Register for this free webinar now!

The Noah Rule: Are you prepared for the unexpected?

Warren Buffet once described the “Noah Rule”:

“Predicting rain doesn’t count; building arks does.”

At Faith-Based Investor, we are a seasoned investment management firm that uses advanced asset allocation and financial strategies designed to work when the going gets tough.  With that in mind, I wanted to share some of our keys to success.

Financial predictions are a dime a dozen. But how many of them are actually right? What happens when the unexpected actually occurs: the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, a stock market collapse?  When the rain comes are you prepared for a flood?

We purposefully concentrate on financially and morally sound financial strategies. This not only involves selecting companies that meet your financial and moral criteria but planning your finances in such a way that you are prepared for both the good and bad times.  By combining financial planning with asset management, we strive to offer our clients piece of mind knowing they are properly protected.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out today’s environment is extremely challenging:

• The stock market is far less forgiving than the 1980s and 1990s
• The threat of hyper-inflation
• Interest rates at all-time lows do not favor fixed income investors
• Traditional asset allocation failed us during the 2008-2009 market collapse

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At FaithBasedInvestor.com we help individuals and businesses manage their assets in a way that reflects their faith and values. Many of our clients refuse to hand their hard earned money over to “just anyone”.  Instead, they want to own investments they can be “proud to own”.  This entails a five steps process:

1) Access where you are currently. Without know exactly where you are investing it is nearly impossible to know if your portfolio is in line with your values.  A quick appointment with an advisor who specializes in faith-based/values-based investing can help you determine if your portfolio is a good fit with your moral criteria.

2) Reflect on where you want to go. What values are most important to you?  What is acceptable and not acceptable to you as you invest.  First, look at positive aspects.  What moral/social issues are on your heart? Feed the poor? Speaking up for the unborn? Helping the underprivileged?  Make a list of positive values.   Next look at areas in society you wish to have no part in. Maybe you do not want to profit from abortion, pornography, gambling, embryonic stem cell research, or something else…

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