Commun ty Matters Manor of the Plains
April 2017
Your guide to investment jargon By Jack Fehr for Next Avenue As the stock market continues its gyrations, now is a good time to buy an investment with a favorable NAV and alpha that keeps on giving while reducing beta. Got that? If not, don’t be embarrassed. Investment companies and financial advisers love to load up their materials with this kind of jargon. Here are two of the more widely used, but not widely understood, financial terms you should know: Alpha is a measure of investment performance adjusted for risk. Think of alpha as the two extra chocolates you happily found in your bag of JARGON, continued on page 2
Don’t let fear stop you End-of-life planning makes a difference to loved ones By Debbie Reslock for Next Avenue When I was in my early 20s, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. It felt like a one-two punch, since my dad had died unexpectedly a few years earlier. Although Mom tried chemotherapy, the results seemed to suggest that this was going to end badly, which it did — less than six months later. During that time, her life became a mere shadow of what it once was. And yet no one, including her doctors, myself or my mom, ever talked about what was happening. PLANNING, continued on page 2