Advisor Models

[Backyard8097]

I started working with an Advisor group in 2008 or so. They put me into a Wells Fargo FundSource program which had both fund fees and fees through them.

It was cheaper to move to a "managed account models" format where they charge a 1% AUM fee and buy and sell individual stocks to meet a model, across large numbers of accounts at once.

My taxable account is set up as "companies that keep growing their dividends" as it had less buy/sell than the growth account they put my IRA into.

Taxable is about market performance. IRA growth model tends to raise cash to play defense and buy back in (was 1/3rd cash at some points in 2022 i think), but I'm still down 10% from Dec 2021 levels when market has grown beyond.

This seems overcomplicated at <40 and I think I should have them move both to index funds and either them or someone suggest allocations.

[Rocinante Rider]

You probably won't find much support for any advisor model on this forum. My suggestion is to ditch the advisors entirely and stop trying to time the markets. A dollar invested in an ultra low cost, broad market index fund is mathematically guaranteed to do better than the average dollar invested in the same market with advisors or actively managed funds, and at lower risk to boot. Read and follow the guidance in the Boglehead wiki, or any of the basic books recommended there, and in the years to come you will likely come out millions of dollars ahead.

[nedsaid]

These managed accounts can be a good investment but usually you pay two layers of fees, the AUM fee for the Advisor and then the fee charged by the third party manager. These Separately Managed Accounts were often 20 to 40 basis points and actually cheaper than most mutual funds purchased through an Advisor.

What fees are you paying? What do you pay your Advisor and what are you paying for the managed account model? What I am hoping to hear is that the 1% fee includes everything and that you aren't paying a separate charge for the model.

The thing is, it is doubtful that these accounts will outperform index funds that invest in the same area of the market. I worked for a Financial Advisor who used a dozen or so third party managers and my analysis showed that they performed about as one would expect, close to what similar index funds would do. So these can be okay, but you will see the 30 or so stocks in the separate account listed on your account statement.

What I don't like here is the market timing, being in cash at inopportune times is why your growth account has underperformed. If the account had stayed fully invested you would have seen a return similar to the market return.

What you could do is find a model where they don't market time, playing defense, and just follow their discipline through thick and thin. Your decision to pay less in fees was sound. The growth models discipline to raise cash to play defense is not sound. In my opinion, equity funds should be fully invested or nearly so at all times. For one thing, managers get the timing wrong. Another point is that longer term cash is a drag on returns in an equity fund or account.

Groucho Marx was told by his Doctor to give up on wine, women, and song. When asked what he did, Groucho said that he switched Doctors! What I would do is the Groucho Marx solution and switch to a model that follows its discipline and stays fully invested at all times.

[livesoft]

When the horse is dead, dismount.

I'm a big fan of the DIY everything-free WellsTrade model. No advisor involved. I own VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market) at WellsTrade and also at my other free no-advisor financial institutions.

Bogleheads.org can suggest to you an asset allocation and a model for no charge. Please see:
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Asking_ ... _questions

[nedsaid]

You probably won't find much support for any advisor model on this forum. My suggestion is to ditch the advisors entirely and stop trying to time the markets. A dollar invested in an ultra low cost, broad market index fund is mathematically guaranteed to do better than the average dollar invested in the same market with advisors or actively managed funds, and at lower risk to boot. Read and follow the guidance in the Boglehead wiki, or any of the basic books recommended there, and in the years to come you will likely come out millions of dollars ahead.

Which brings up another question. Why did you decide to invest through an Advisor? In my opinion, the key reason you hire an Advisor is for holistic Financial Planning and not just to manage assets. The reason being is that you can buy asset management pretty cheaply at pretty low cost using such things as Balanced Funds, Asset Allocation Funds, Target Date Retirement Funds, and Robo Advisors for a whole lot cheaper than what you are paying now. For IRA accounts, you could just buy one fund and be done. With taxable accounts, you want to minimize taxable capital gains so a low cost Robo Advisor that manages for taxes or very broad index funds with very low portfolio turnover work very well.

You can buy portfolio management in one fund for 0.20% a year or even less, as I said above these are best for IRA accounts. You could buy index funds for your taxable account for 0.10% a year or less. You are paying a whole lot more than that now.

[Backyard8097]

These managed accounts can be a good investment but usually you pay two layers of fees, the AUM fee for the Advisor and then the fee charged by the third party manager. These Separately Managed Accounts were often 20 to 40 basis points and actually cheaper than most mutual funds purchased through an Advisor.

What fees are you paying? What do you pay your Advisor and what are you paying for the managed account model? What I am hoping to hear is that the 1% fee includes everything and that you aren't paying a separate charge for the model.

Just the 1% fee - but both accounts have some smaller (20-25%) portion that is ETFs. Otherwise individual stocks that come into or fall out of the model's boundaries. I think the group manages it internally. There's another account that holds a handful of individual stocks - that one is free. They kept it separated so that I didn't pay a fee on those as they were going to sit untouched.

What I don't like here is the market timing, being in cash at inopportune times is why your growth account has underperformed. If the account had stayed fully invested you would have seen a return similar to the market return.

I've been questioning that as well. I'd rather just ride it out than time the market and raise cash.

Which brings up another question. Why did you decide to invest through an Advisor?

Family used the same group for decades.

[steadyosmosis]

It was cheaper to move to a "managed account models" format where they charge a 1% AUM fee ...

OP does not say how much money is being managed at 1% fee per year, but:

$100,000 x 1% AUM = $1,000/year ... times 17 years = $17,000 paid in AUM fees (2008 through 2024).

$500,000 x 1% AUM = $5,000/year ... times 17 years = $85,000 paid in AUM fees (2008 through 2024).

$1,000,000 x 1% AUM = $10,000/year ... times 17 years = $170,000 paid in AUM fees (2008 through 2024).

Many Bogleheads use a simple 3-fund portfolio (or something equally simple) and keep all those AUM fees for themselves.

[Doctor Rhythm]

As others have said, this isn't a forum that compares advisors other than to say that some are less bad than others. The 1% fee translates into a ~25% smaller portfolio over a 30-year accumulation phase. If you continue this model during retirement and decumulation, you might be able to withdraw an additional 25% less each year.

Doesn't the taxable strategy lead to a lot of capital gains tax?

[Backyard8097]

Many Bogleheads use a simple 3-fund portfolio (or something equally simple) and keep all those AUM fees for themselves.

I've been starting to do this outside of them. I have an e-mail drafted to find out why "growth" under-performed the market. I wanted to be nice and send tomorrow. They were raising cash again briefly about a month ago but bought back in since.

I had a conversation with someone for workplace retirement stuff a couple years ago and told her that when the markets tanked in March 2020, I wanted to deploy spare cash because the market was "on sale" versus some of her clients that wanted to panic sell. Sadly I didn't do that, but she was impressed with my thought process.

[livesoft]

I've been starting to do this outside of them. I have an e-mail drafted to find out why "growth" under-performed the market.

They won't have a legitimate answer, so I think you are wasting your time. Growth did outperform the market, but not the growth they picked.

[Backyard8097]

Doesn't the taxable strategy lead to a lot of capital gains tax?

Big hit to change from FundSource to this and it would be another big hit to change current to index funds. But less in taxes than AUM I believe. Possibly the same going from FundSource to this.

Taxable is in the "dividend" model so that it doesn't buy and sell a lot. I've only been in this for 2-3 years and both years had net losses. They said there's no benchmark for it. This is not to say that it doesn't include growth-type companies though. Dividend model is about on-par with the market at last check.

[livesoft]

If you have only had net losses, then why do you think it would be a big hit to change now?

[Doctor Rhythm]

Agree with prior posters - don't waste your time writing letters and trying to analyze their response. Once you've decided that you can manage your own investments, then make a clean, impersonal break.

With a 1% fee, lagging behind the market in any year is common, and lagging behind the market after a decade should be a strong expectation.

Also, a net loss in the last 2-3 years is pretty brutal -- sorry to hear that.

[Rocinante Rider]

It was cheaper to move to a "managed account models" format where they charge a 1% AUM fee ...

OP does not say how much money is being managed at 1% fee per year, but:

$100,000 x 1% AUM = $1,000/year ... times 17 years = $17,000 paid in AUM fees (2008 through 2024).

$500,000 x 1% AUM = $5,000/year ... times 17 years = $85,000 paid in AUM fees (2008 through 2024).

$1,000,000 x 1% AUM = $10,000/year ... times 17 years = $170,000 paid in AUM fees (2008 through 2024).

Many Bogleheads use a simple 3-fund portfolio (or something equally simple) and keep all those AUM fees for themselves.

It's much, much worse. Your example incorrectly assumed no growth in the investment. From 2008 - 2024 the S&P 500 returned an average of 10.9% per year. After 17 years the fees on the initial investment of 100k, 500k, or 1M in 2008, even with no additional investments added, would have cost approximately $83,000, $416,000, and $832,000 respectively!

John Bogle referred to this as "the tyranny of compounding costs," and Albert Einstein said, “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn't, pays it.”

Addendum: the value of 100k, 500k, or 1M invested in an S&P 500 Index fund from 2008 - 2024 would be 549k, 2.75M, and 5.49M respectively.

[Backyard8097]

If you have only had net losses, then why do you think it would be a big hit to change now?

There's a net gain, but the individual stocks sold in 2022 and 2023 resulted in tax losses.

[livesoft]

There's a net gain, but the individual stocks sold in 2022 and 2023 resulted in tax losses.

So you have some carryover losses to apply to future realized capital gains.

[123]

... I have an e-mail drafted to find out why "growth" under-performed the market. I wanted to be nice and send tomorrow. They were raising cash again briefly about a month ago but bought back in since...

Financial advisers will have an answer for any question you ask. It's all part of the rassmatazz you're paying them for. Funny thing is you might get the same answer regardless of what question you ask, they're salespeople after all. They slice and dice your account so they can, hopefully, always point to some gains somewhere. It's just so much easier to use index funds. No reason to slice and dice. If you want US stocks you just use a Total Stock Market Fund, it works just as well if you've got $100K in an account or $5M in an account. Like many households we have multiple accounts that hold stocks, it is not a sin to use the same index fund in many accounts if you want to include stocks within it and it sure makes knowing what is happening in your accounts very simple.

March and April 2020 were magical months for me. Even though I had been following a boglehead strategy for many years I had not paid as much attention to tax efficiency in investment placement as I should have. March and April 2020 gave me a great opportunity to do significant tax loss harvesting as well as improve tax efficiency in the placement of our holdings.

[nedsaid]

Many Bogleheads use a simple 3-fund portfolio (or something equally simple) and keep all those AUM fees for themselves.

I've been starting to do this outside of them. I have an e-mail drafted to find out why "growth" under-performed the market. I wanted to be nice and send tomorrow. They were raising cash again briefly about a month ago but bought back in since.

I had a conversation with someone for workplace retirement stuff a couple years ago and told her that when the markets tanked in March 2020, I wanted to deploy spare cash because the market was "on sale" versus some of her clients that wanted to panic sell. Sadly I didn't do that, but she was impressed with my thought process.

There is a strong belief in segments of the Advisor community in such things as market timing, tactical asset allocation, sector rotation but I am not aware of evidence that this works. I am pretty certain the reason for the "growth" underperformance are what I stated before: incorrect timing decisions and holding too much cash often at inopportune times. Again, an equity fund should seek to be fully invested at all times or nearly so. Longer term, cash is a drag on returns in an equity portfolio.

What you will find is that it is time in the market and not timing of the market that gets you those good returns, a big reason is that stock returns are bursty, much of the return comes from short, violent moves upward at unexpected times. Good luck predicting when those short, violent upward bursts happen, you just have to be invested. It is the old saying that you need to be on the train when it leaves the station.

Conceptually, timing the market ought to be EZ-PZ, like shooting fish in a barrel. The problem is that sudden market moves up or down are just too unpredictable. It isn't like a swimming pool where the lifeguard blows the whistle and shouts "everyone out of the pool." Also in markets, there is no lifeguard to blow the whistle and tell everyone that it is safe to get back in. Markets can be placid one day and very volatile the next. Sometimes weird things happen in markets and there aren't always clear explanations why. Part of this is that human emotions are powerful and unpredictable, moods can change very quickly. Market timing is simple in concept, very difficult to successfully implement.

You can e-mail your advisor if you like, I am fairly certain that the answer given above will be the correct answer.

[Backyard8097]

The summary is that Growth was down so much in 2022 that it hasn't been able to recover yet despite last year being good. I'm skeptical.

[Doctor Rhythm]

That's a pretty bold claim for them to make, since a 1 minute consultation with Google shows that a growth index fund (VIGAX) is up 15% since Jan 1, 2022. Just NAV, not even total returns.

[ruralavalon]

There's a net gain, but the individual stocks sold in 2022 and 2023 resulted in tax losses.

So you have some carryover losses to apply to future realized capital gains.

If you post your information in this format: Asking Portfolio Questions, including the UNrealized capital gain/loss status and amount for each investment in the taxable account, then we can suggest ideas for you to consider on how to move to an index fund portfolio while minimizing tax consequences. Be sure to state amount of your carryover losses.

You can simply add this to your original post using the edit button (the pencil icon near the upper right corner of your post), it helps a lot if all of your information is in one place.

There is no tax consequence for changing to index funds in your IRA.

[Rocinante Rider]

The summary is that Growth was down so much in 2022 that it hasn't been able to recover yet despite last year being good. I'm skeptical.

Were you expecting an honest answer?

Are there any financial salespeople who would say, "On average, it's mathmatically impossible for us to beat an index fund, and we're certainly not among the 1-2% of "advisors" or active managers who unpredictably do so over an extended period of time."
https://web.stanford.edu/~wfsharpe/art/ ... active.htm

[Taylor Larimore]

Backyard8097:

Consider the many benefits of The Three-Fund Portfolio:

viewtopic.php?t=88005

Best wishes.
Taylor

Jack Bogle's Words of Wisdom:

"The beauty of owning the market is that you eliminate individual stock risk, you eliminate market sector risk, and you eliminate manager risk." -- "There may be better investment strategies than owning just three broad-based index funds but the number of strategies that are worse is infinite

."

[bonesly]

This seems overcomplicated at <40 and I think I should have them move both to index funds and either them or someone suggest allocations.

As @Rocinante Rider said, as long as you stay engaged with salespeople disguised as financial advisors, the more you will continue to pay compared to a DIY approach where you move your assets into index funds with an appropriate asset allocation for your time-frame and risk-tolerance. I also 100% agree with @ruralavalon's suggestion to post your portfolio situation per the Asking Portfolio Questions template and then ask for suggestions on how to use the index funds (or ETFs) to meet a simple 3-Fund Portfolio as @Taylor Larimore suggested to you.

Anything short of DIY or an advice-only advisor (that tells you what to do and why for a flat fee) is going to fall short, because active managers are salespeople; they sell you on the idea that their active strategy can beat the market index, thereby overcoming their higher costs and giving you a higher balance at retirement. Amazingly, the overwhelming majority of them fail to deliver on this goal as evidence bv this article: 80% of Active Managers Fail to Beat the Market, yet it's not illegal for them to advertise that they could beat the market as long as they never promise to do so. However, those much higher costs are guaranteed (unlike that proprietary strategy's market-beating performance). Which is why they will tell you non-sensical explanations for why growth (or any active fund they have) failed to beat it's benchmark in a given period "but here's why you should keep investing in this fund [it pays me a high commission]!.

If you want to DIY, then post your portfolio per the template on Asking Portfolio Questions. If you want suggestions on finding an advice-only advisor, let us know. As stated by @Rocinante Rider, you're not going to get a lot of positive feedback about advisors that work on Assets Under Management (AUM) and/or commission for selling specific products to you. It's easier for them to convince you to move all your assets to them (higher AUM = more income for advisor) rather than actually beating the market. It's easier for them to make the quick cash grab (high-fee with kickbacks = more income for advisor) rather than actually beating the market. To avoid that, you have to avoid salespeople disguised as advisors because salespeople have an inherent conflict of interest between what's best for you (match the market at lowest cost) vs what's best for them (highest income for them via fees to paid by the client).

[Backyard8097]

If you want to DIY, then post your portfolio per the template on Asking Portfolio Questions. If you want suggestions on finding an advice-only advisor, let us know.

Advice-only makes sense for an initial conversation at least.

[RetiredAL]

Many Bogleheads use a simple 3-fund portfolio (or something equally simple) and keep all those AUM fees for themselves.

I've been starting to do this outside of them. I have an e-mail drafted to find out why "growth" under-performed the market. I wanted to be nice and send tomorrow. They were raising cash again briefly about a month ago but bought back in since.

I had a conversation with someone for workplace retirement stuff a couple years ago and told her that when the markets tanked in March 2020, I wanted to deploy spare cash because the market was "on sale" versus some of her clients that wanted to panic sell. Sadly I didn't do that, but she was impressed with my thought process.

Careful -- All this buying and selling is likely adding to your tax liability. Before I got my Dad to drop his advisor, Dad got to pay an extra $8K in taxes one year due to all the buying and selling in his managed taxable account. That extra tax bill finally got his attention and we shorty afterwards dropped the advisor.

[Backyard8097]

Careful -- All this buying and selling is likely adding to your tax liability.

This was in the IRA - they raised about 1/3 cash in parts of 2022, which is likely why it didn't recover. Taxable doesn't buy/sell as much.

[nedsaid]

There are all kinds of portfolio models out there. There are portfolio models that you can buy with pretty low expense ratios. These include Balanced Funds, Asset Allocation Funds, Target Date Retirement funds.

iShares has a set of good Asset Allocation ETFs, you pick the asset allocation that you want from the choices and you are done. Vanguard has similar funds called the LifeStrategy funds. If you want an investment that gets more conservative as you age, Target Date Retirement funds are available and that consist of the cheaper index funds, Vanguard and Fidelity have these. Then there are the good old fashioned Balanced Funds which keep a stable allocation of stocks versus bonds, many of them target about 60% stocks and 40% bonds. You can get good asset management for 0.25% or less and that is much better than paying 1%. These are best for tax deferred or tax free retirement accounts.

For taxable accounts, you can use a cheap Robo-Advisor, be sure to check if they manage for tax efficiency. Otherwise, you can buy the very broad "Total" index funds for a taxable account, which have low turnover and are great for minimizing the tax bite. There are more tax-efficient ETFs as well.

Another alternative is to bake your own, use your favorite Asset Allocation or Target Date fund and just copy what they do. There are all kinds of portfolio models out there, including the 3 fund portfolio, that you can use. You just have to rebalance the portfolio yourself.

[hand]

I started working with an Advisor group in 2008 or so. They put me into a Wells Fargo FundSource program which had both fund fees and fees through them.

It was cheaper to move to a "managed account models" format where they charge a 1% AUM fee and buy and sell individual stocks to meet a model, across large numbers of accounts at once.

My taxable account is set up as "companies that keep growing their dividends" as it had less buy/sell than the growth account they put my IRA into.

You are paying someone 1% or more and the strategy is to put dividend paying stocks in taxable?!?
(And the justification is that they're doing something *worse* in tax deferred!)

The issue here is not the advisory model, it is advisory.

[Rocinante Rider]

If you want to DIY, then post your portfolio per the template on Asking Portfolio Questions. If you want suggestions on finding an advice-only advisor, let us know.

Advice-only makes sense for an initial conversation at least.

Just to be clear, when @bonesly suggests "an advice-only advisor," this refers to an advisor who charges only an hourly fee for consultations. The "Advisor group" that you've been paying a huge, non-hourly fee since 2008 are not advice-only advisors. They are actually "sales and AUM fee managers." You can't have any conversation, initial or otherwise, with them in which they will offer only fiduciary advice and recommendations for a simple hourly fee.

[ruralavalon]

If you want to DIY, then post your portfolio per the template on Asking Portfolio Questions. If you want suggestions on finding an advice-only advisor, let us know.

Advice-only makes sense for an initial conversation at least.

Here is a online book chapter which you may fund helpful: Chapter 10 – On Your Own or Hire an Advisor. "The great paradox of using an advisor is that you must know some basics in order to evaluate the advice, and once you do, you also know enough to consider doing your own management. If you have gotten this far through the primer, you are already a more knowledgeable investor."

Here are some resources for finding a fee-only planner:
1) Bogleheads forum discussion;
2) Advice-Only: The Best Model For Financial Advice . . .
3) Garrett Planning Network; and
4) NAPFA.

[magicrat]

Doesn't the taxable strategy lead to a lot of capital gains tax?

Big hit to change from FundSource to this and it would be another big hit to change current to index funds. But less in taxes than AUM I believe. Possibly the same going from FundSource to this.

Taxable is in the "dividend" model so that it doesn't buy and sell a lot. I've only been in this for 2-3 years and both years had net losses. They said there's no benchmark for it. This is not to say that it doesn't include growth-type companies though. Dividend model is about on-par with the market at last check.

Putting dividend stocks in taxable and growth in IRA is completely backwards. Costing you a lot of unnecessary taxes

[WoodSpinner]

Doesn't the taxable strategy lead to a lot of capital gains tax?

Big hit to change from FundSource to this and it would be another big hit to change current to index funds. But less in taxes than AUM I believe. Possibly the same going from FundSource to this.

Taxable is in the "dividend" model so that it doesn't buy and sell a lot. I've only been in this for 2-3 years and both years had net losses. They said there's no benchmark for it. This is not to say that it doesn't include growth-type companies though. Dividend model is about on-par with the market at last check.

Why would you invest for Dividends in your Taxable account? It’s a very inefficient way of accumulating assets.

Plus, not having a benchmark is pure BS. There are plenty of benchmarks available for Dividend Investing.

Personally, I think you and your family have been poorly served by these FAs.

WoodSpinner

[Backyard8097]

Putting dividend stocks in taxable and growth in IRA is completely backwards. Costing you a lot of unnecessary taxes

Dividends were only about 2% last year in total from the "Dividend" model account per my 1099. I think the idea is that "Dividend" is also growth stuff but they don't churn that model as much as the "Growth" model.

I spoke earlier with the person that manages the "Growth" stuff. The goal isn't to try to beat the market - the goal is to ensure that clients don't get hit too badly in .com and 2008-style downturns. I had to look up how VFIAX did during that period - seems the summer 2007 price didn't return until early 2013, though I'm not sure anyone would have done well during that.

They're willing to review my accounts with them and externally to see what makes sense from an allocation perspective (no cost to this), so I sent over what I have separate from them.

That said, I'm not buying that these models with AUM attached are doing me any good at 37 - even a longer downturn like 2008 is manageable (and DCA would buy in at a "discount").

[magicrat]

Putting dividend stocks in taxable and growth in IRA is completely backwards. Costing you a lot of unnecessary taxes

Dividends were only about 2% last year in total from the "Dividend" model account per my 1099. I think the idea is that "Dividend" is also growth stuff but they don't churn that model as much as the "Growth" model.

I spoke earlier with the person that manages the "Growth" stuff. The goal isn't to try to beat the market - the goal is to ensure that clients don't get hit too badly in .com and 2008-style downturns. I had to look up how VFIAX did during that period - seems the summer 2007 price didn't return until early 2013, though I'm not sure anyone would have done well during that.

They're willing to review my accounts with them and externally to see what makes sense from an allocation perspective (no cost to this), so I sent over what I have separate from them.

That said, I'm not buying that these models with AUM attached are doing me any good at 37 - even a longer downturn like 2008 is manageable (and DCA would buy in at a "discount").

Ah, so the goal is to underperform the market. Well I guess they’re meeting the goal

[nedsaid]

Putting dividend stocks in taxable and growth in IRA is completely backwards. Costing you a lot of unnecessary taxes

Dividends were only about 2% last year in total from the "Dividend" model account per my 1099. I think the idea is that "Dividend" is also growth stuff but they don't churn that model as much as the "Growth" model.

I spoke earlier with the person that manages the "Growth" stuff. The goal isn't to try to beat the market - the goal is to ensure that clients don't get hit too badly in .com and 2008-style downturns. I had to look up how VFIAX did during that period - seems the summer 2007 price didn't return until early 2013, though I'm not sure anyone would have done well during that.

They're willing to review my accounts with them and externally to see what makes sense from an allocation perspective (no cost to this), so I sent over what I have separate from them.

That said, I'm not buying that these models with AUM attached are doing me any good at 37 - even a longer downturn like 2008 is manageable (and DCA would buy in at a "discount").

Whatever you do, don't beat yourself up over whatever financial decisions you made in the past including hiring an Advisor. I know that it took me many years of experience and study to learn what I know today and I realize that most people don't share my passion for these topics. You did the best you could with what you knew at the time. I know that I have made mistakes myself. I do think most people would benefit from an Advisory relationship, the problem is trying to find the good ones as everyone talks a good game. I want to encourage you to keep studying and to keep learning and remember that everyone here had to go through a learning process to learn what they know today. I really want you to be encouraged and to feel good that you are taking a look at some things now and evaluating them based upon what you are learning. Best wishes, Ned.