As an independent financial advisor under the LPL Financial umbrella, JD Newton provides financial planning, asset and wealth management, and financial coaching to business owners and individuals who are planning for retirement or a business exit strategy. His independent status allows him to have access to a wide range of tools and resources, including advanced technology, to help clients pursue their financial goals.
As a Christian, JD’s deep-rooted faith plays an important role in ethically helping clients sort through assets, explore possibilities, and create a customized financial plan. An overflow of his faith is that he truly finds joy in helping people. “When I’ve done my due diligence and am able to tell a client that they will be able to retire and move on to their next passion when they are ready, I love seeing that realization and the calm and relief on people's faces,” he shares.
Outside of the office, JD is a licensed pilot and finds that flying provides a wonderful sense of freedom. “There is a beauty and peacefulness to flying,” he explains. “It’s stepping away from being in the middle of life, kind of like taking a period of time and putting down my phone and no turning on any electronics. It has a very calming effect.”
Over the years, JD has found that his career in finance and his hobby of flying mirror one another in several ways. Whether it is creating a customized financial plan or flight plan, JD says there are parallels in the processes.
Gather Information & Make a Plan
Flying - We look at all aspects of the weather: the current situation, the weather along the flight path, and the forecast for where we are flying to. Once we've gathered all the information and know there is a storm in the path, we can plan to fly around it, or if it is too big of a storm, we may need to wait it out. Once we take off, we know there is going to be turbulence along the way, but we've planned for it because we know what the weather is expected to be like. Sometimes weather pops up that we may not necessarily expect, but we keep our plan flexible so if there are unforeseen things that happen, we can deviate when needed.
Finances - We gather information from checking, savings, retirement plans at work, if there is a pension, and social security options. Then we analyze the information and make a plan. But just like the weather when flying, we might have some major event that happens in the markets that people don't expect. The good news is our plans can be flexible and we can make adjustments as needed.
Maintain Balance
Flying – It is important to think about how the airplane is going to fly. If we make it too nose heavy or too tail heavy, we're not going to get the flight characteristics we want and that can be a dangerous situation.
Finances – There are two sides to risk management: the amount of risk that you're comfortable taking and the amount of risk that you need to take to be able to achieve your goals. That risk is essentially volatility within the markets and the potential that the markets don't perform as well as you want them to.
That balance comes in the form of taking a little bit more risk in my portfolio, for example a little bit more stock and exposing myself to a little bit more up and down along the way, but once I'm within a few years of retirement, then I start dialing that back and get closer to a level of risk that I'm comfortable with.
However, if you don't take enough risk, you could be putting yourself at a much greater risk of running out of money in retirement. We use other options to mitigate that as much as we can, such as taking social security a little bit later so that we can get a greater amount or buying into an annuity to get more guaranteed income.
Conduct Frequent Check-ins
Flying – In a plane, we are checking minute to minute, hour to hour. Whenever we are charting out the flight path, we pull up this big map and using a compass and ruler, we map out what it will take to get from point A to point B and the shortest distances between them. We also map out waypoints and when flying, we want to make sure we are getting to those points on schedule – and we want to see those points.
Finances - With a financial plan, we are checking in quarterly and yearly to see how things are developing and make sure that we are still on path. We check to see if we are ahead of plan, behind schedule, or if we are right on track. Then if unforeseen things do pop up, we can either mitigate them or we can change our plan.
Ensure Redundancy
Flying - All the critical systems in an airplane have a backup to ensure the flight is a success.
Finances – Within financial planning, we may not use backups per se, but we do make sure that there are alternatives. As we do an analysis every year, I can make recommendations such as instead of having everything in a 401k and fully invested in the market, we can take part of that and set it off into an annuity that is going to provide more guaranteed income. Making that move takes a lot of stress off the portfolio to perform well. We also want to have multiple sources of income coming in - social security, annuity, plus income from the portfolio. Redundancy ensures that there are backups and diversification within our portfolio that will provide income.
Much like a pilot relies on teamwork and communication for a successful flight, JD collaborates with his client’s attorney, accountant, and other professional partners to guide clients toward a strong financial future. For more information and to connect with JD, visit www.NewtonPrivateWealth.com, email jd.newton@lpl.com, or call 817-545-4572.
The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.
Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, a registered investment advisor. Member FINRA/SIPC.