The Tennis Hacker's Investment Guide: Bob Brinker's MoneyTalk Radio Show

If you love great conversation about personal investment and finance, you would love Bob Brinker's MoneyTalk, a radio show that comes on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. In Arlington, Texas, it is carried over radio station 820 A.M. but I actually listen to it over the internet from WABC Radio New York website.

From time to time I actually disagree with the advice that Bob Brinker gives over the radio, but he is a good conversationalist and a great host. However, the most intriguing part of the show may be when listeners call in and describe their own personal financial situation: nuts-and-bolts, hands-on, real-life experiences.

Increase your investment I.Q. -- and possibly your investment earnings: listen to Bob Brinker's MoneyTalk.

The Tennis Hacker's Relaxation Guide: Controlled Breathing with 'Resperate'

Hello, my friend. I haven't talked to you in a while. Please forgive me: it's the Christmas season; I had a little too much egg nog.

Every so often The Tennis Hacker loves to tell you about a new product. I learned that there is great benefit to what is called controlled breathing or rhythmic breathing. The ability to slow down your breathing leads to great benefits from lowering your blood pressure, to controlling anxiety and more.

There are numerous techniques, for example, breathe in the nose and out of the mouth. However, for people who like gadgets or maybe interested in buying someone a gift to help lower blood pressure or to help them relax, there is a product called Resperate and it is recommended by the highly respected Mayo Clinic.

The Resperate has an earphone (like a Walkman), a strap that you place around your abdomen or chest (to monitor your breathing rate), and it plays music: you breath in and out in tune with the music.

It reduces your breathing dramatically from 20 breaths per minute to four breaths per minute. And that is a good thing.

Hurt, Waller Winners Holiday Doubles

John Hurt and Brad Waller won the men's 4.5 division of the Walnut Creek Holiday Doubles Open at the Walnut Creek Country Club. Hurt and Waller, both from Mansfield, Texas, defeated the number-one ranked team of David Luningham of Arlington and Scott Stidham of Mansfield, 6-2, 3-6, 10-8 in the final.

In the semifinals Hurt and Waller beat Thomas Avery of Arlington and Vincent Lapenna of Cedar Hill. In the other semfinal Luningham and Stidham got by Todd hill of Grand Prairie and Jeff Janssen of Arlington, 6-2, 6-0.

In the quarterfinals, Hurt and Waller needed three sets to win against Matthew Johnson and John Singleton of Fort Worth, 5-7, 7-6, 10-4.

The Tennis Hacker's Investment Guide: Financial Planners in Arlington, Texas

A financial planner is like a tennis coach. Some financial planners have the title CFP (Certified Financial Planner) behind their name. Some CFPs in Arlington, Texas, are:

Robert Williams
JPM Chase
1301 S. Brown
(817)548-2615

Kenneth Wieland
North Arlington Tax Service
1414 W. Randol Mill Ste 200
(817)860-2484

Related:

Hiring A Financial Planner

Winning The Loser's Game

Saving For College

The Tennis Hacker's Investment Guide: Financial Planner Like a Tennis Coach

Many investors handle their own financial planning. Some investors prefer to use a financial planner.

If you do use a financial planner, you should hire a planner the same way you hire a tennis instructor. You pay a tennis instructor a fee per lesson. Likewise, it is a good idea to pay your financial advisor per visit, per hour or for services rendered.

If you pay your financial advisor by commission, you are inviting danger. Paying by commission can lead to 'churning', a phenomenon -- not unlike heartburn and indigestion -- that causes an uneasy stomach. 'Churning' occurs when your financial advisor moves your money from here to there and back again -- constantly selling and buying stocks and bonds, moving into this fund and that fund.

This frenetic activity may or may not lead to increased earnings -- statistics say you would lose money because of this constant movement -- but your financial advisor is guaranteed a commission for each transaction.

So before you hire a financial advisor, ask him: how are you paid by fee or commission? If he says commission, hold on to your pockets, get up slowly, walk carefully to door; when you get to the door: run, run as fast as you can.

***

Some financial planners have the title CFP (Certified Financial Planner) behind their name. Some CFPs in Arlington, Texas, are:

Robert Williams
JPM Chase
1301 S. Brown
(817)548-2615

Kenneth Wieland
North Arlington Tax Service
1414 W. Randol Mill Ste 200
(817)860-2484

The Tennis Hacker's Investment Guide: Winning the Loser's Game

The theme of The Tennis Hacker -- 'How Life Imitates Tennis' -- is a truism. Tennis has influenced investing in a major way. By studying tennis, economists have come up with a theory called 'the loser's game'.

Some university professor actually did a study watching and keeping statistics of amateur tennis matches. What the professor found is intuitive but not necessarily obvious: the player who made fewer mistakes usually won.

A man named Charles Ellis seized on the idea and applied it to the stock market. Ellis wrote in a seminal article in 1975 that investors who tried 'to beat the stock market' are doomed to fail. Ellis' 'loser theory' says you can not consistently beat the stock market but your portfolio can consistently match or mirror the stock market's results.

Ellis' article was fleshed out into a book Winning The Loser's Game.

The theory had a profound effect on another investment professional John Bogle who would go on to be an investment legend in his own right. Based on the principles Bogle went on to found the investment company Vanguard. Vanguard refined the loser theory into a strategy called 'index investing'. The strategy is brilliant in its simplicity: it doesn't try to pick the 'best stocks' but rather holds all the stocks in the market.

Resources:

The Loser's Game article by Charles D. Ellis

The Tennis Hacker's Investment Guide: Save for Your Child's College Expenses

Every so often, The Tennis Hacker likes to give you investment advice. This advice should be taken with a grain of salt: the Tennis Hacker's advice plus fifty cents would buy you a cup of coffee.

Let's say you have a child playing junior tennis. In a few years your junior tennis player would be headed to college. The time to start planning and saving for college is now.

As you save for college, it is wise to put the money in a stock or bond investment. Hopefully, you would receive a good return on your money.

The danger is -- as your pot of money grows -- the danger is you would have to pay a chunk of the money to taxes. To avoid the taxman, consider placing the college savings in a vehicle called a 529 plan.

The benefits of the 529 plan:

*the money grows tax-free. You pay no federal taxes on withdrawals as long as the money is used for qualified education expenses including room and board and books for college and university, including graduate school, and many technical schools.

*Flexibility to change the beneficiary. In plain English, that means if you open an account in the name of one child, you can later change it to the name of another sibling.

*Contribute as much as you want until it reaches $310,000. No restrictions based on your income. Minimal impact on the student's financial aid eligibility.

Related:
Tennis Hacker's Investment Guide for Tour Players

Gastao Elias Wins Eddie Herr

Gastao Elias of Portugal -- who played at the Texas 76ers tournament in Mansfield, Texas --won the boy's 18-year-old group of the Eddie Herr tennis tournament. Gastao is having a decent year having won an International Tennis Federation event in Mexico and being named Gillette Future Champion as Portugal's best young athlete.

Gastao Elias. Photos by Tessa Kolodny.

Busy Weekend in Texas Tennis

The Arlington Tennis Association Toys for Tennis Tournament was held Saturday at the Arlington Tennis Center. Also in Texas on Saturday:

the Dallas Professional Tennis Association Junior Circuit 4 Frisco High School Tournament,

Austin Junior Championship Major Zone,

New Braunfels Zone Advancement Tournament At Newks,

Houston Tennis Association Zone Advancement Tournament and

Abilene Junior Championship Major Zone Tournament.

Parents, fans and tournament organizers: please e-mail tournament photos to tennis.hacker@yahoo.com. Photos will be featured here at The Tennis Hacker.