Colorado Springs Financial Briefs: October 19, 2007

Today is the 20th anniversary of the largest one-day Dow Jones Industrial Average percentage drop since 1914. After a five-year bull market, the market fell 508 points, or 22.61 percent, on Oct. 19, 1987.

Michael G. Willis, president of Colorado Springs-based Giant 5 Funds, recalled Black Monday and how it altered his investing philosophy. Willis was an undergraduate at the time but had started trading full time.

"It (the crash) was an eye-opener," he sad. "I talked to an economics professor and asked what would happen if everything went to zero, and who lost all that stock -- the companies or the investors? All the people at IBM were still going to work the next morning. In the end, IBM was just fine; the stocks did come back up. So all the people who sold out when it hit bottom, lost."

Realizing that investing was a battle of fear and greed -- when things are going down, fear makes investors want to sell -- Willis said he changed his philosophy. Since then, he has learned to consistently -- key word -- buy in the face of fear and sell in the face of greed.

"We have a proactive strategy; we buy low and sell high," he said. "With our five core permanent portfolio holdings, we take the high performers and roll them into the low. We'll keep buying real estate, which is the dog right now, and soon it will take off again. Right now, raw materials and energy are up 30 percent, so real estate has not hurt our overall performance; we're still outperforming the S&P (Standard & Poor's Register of Corps.) by 7 percent.

"The crash was my first introduction to (realizing) that people who sold in the face of fear lost in the game of beating Wall Street. Despite the crash, many people don't realize that 1987 was up, marginally, for the year. Over the long period, assets go up."

Integrity opens new branch

Integrity bank opened its third branch Monday at 13475 Voyager Parkway, at the corner of Northgate Road.

Executive Vice President Randy Rush said the new location is in a growth area that has few existing banking services.

"Since we are locally owned, we have decision makers in each branch, which makes for a quick turn-around time on loan decisions," he said. "We're fleet on our feet. And we tailor (financial) plans to a customer's needs, instead of making the plan fit into a box."

The grand opening is from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday. Festivities will include a coffee bar, Southern-style hot dogs, air jumpers and face painting for kids, and an extreme BMX bike show.

Online calculator estimates your retirement readiness

Wells Fargo has launched a free online calculator that estimates the number of years a person's retirement money will last once he or she stops working.

The calculator, called the Retire Secure Index, is intended to be a first-step retirement planning tool for those who are not yet savvy about financial planning.

Users can enter information such as age, income, savings, investments and retirement goals. An RSI score, calculated within seconds, estimates the number of years a person can expect his or her retirement money to last.

Results can also be illustrated as a graph, and the program includes suggested strategies to increase one's RSI score.

According to a Wall Street Journal Online and Harris Interactive poll, one in five adults has not started to prepare for retirement. And, of those already planning for retirement, only 10 percent have met with a financial adviser.

The calculator is available at www.wellsfargo.retiresecureindex.com.

Ent offers unsecured Business line of credit

Ent Federal Credit Union has launched an unsecured business line of credit, available to business account holders, with credit limits from $3,500 to $50,000. The new product features a low fixed interest rate, an affordable monthly payment and no annual per- transaction fees.

Wayne Paton, Ent's vice president for corporate and business banking, said the product is designed to assist businesses in meeting short-term cash flow needs.

"Turn-around time for unsecured loans is quick, because we look more at consumer attributes of business members, rather than at the attributes of the corporation," he said.

Credit line advances can be made in person, by phone or at www.Ent.com/business.

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