In my email from the AICPA

CPA Advice After the Market Meltdown

September 29 2008
by Rick Telberg/At Large

If you?re not concerned by the meltdown on Wall Street, you?re probably not paying attention.

Or, you just may be getting advice and financial planning services from a few of the leading CPA financial planners we?ve been hearing from. Nearly every CPA we?ve been hearing from has been rattled by the events in the financial markets, but each has also remained calm and confident that, with the right planning and preparation, his or her clients should be able to weather the worst of the storm with minimal damage.

?Everybody should be concerned,? agrees Michael E. Goodman, CPA, CFP, PFS, at Wealthstream Advisors Inc. in New York. ?These are historic times in the financial industry. Several companies that we view as institutions made bets that were riskier than they thought. And many other institutions got caught in the downdraft because they did not evaluate or understand the risk that some of these other companies were taking.

?However, this will not put an end to our economic engine,? according to Goodman. ?Surely, it will affect the economy. But we have had times in the past in which industries (such as telecommunications or technology) have struggled before.?

Indeed, 93 percent of CPAs report some level of heightened concern in the days following Lehman Brothers? bankruptcy and the Federal Reserve?s move to prop up AIG, according to the first 100 CPAs we heard from. We launched the survey to my A-list CPA panels on Sept. 15 before last week?s column inviting additional responses from CPA Insider? readers.

We?ve been asking: ?What?s your best advice for clients now?? Here?s a sampling of CPA opinion from the first 100 responses:

1. Hold steady; look for the long term.
2. Save money. Cut back on spending. Limit credit spending.
3. Buy quality. Stay out of the financial services sector for now, but be ready to go back in.
4. Reduce spend to reduce debt and build savings.
5. Revisit your strategy, if you are uncomfortable. The best thing you can do is have a consistent strategy, one that you are willing to rely on regardless of market conditions. This will reduce your likelihood of making changes based on emotions.
6. Stay with long-term goals and planning for such goals.
7. Marshal your assets and consult a trusted advisor about your exposure and plan out a pathway through this current downturn.
8. Stay in cash.
9. Hold positions unless there is concentrated wealth in one security. If sitting on cash, put money into the market now.
10. Don't panic. React with intelligence and do not rely on mass media information.
11. Look at your current risk tolerance and make sure your asset allocation reflects that.

?This is a time when CPA financial planners should be talking with their clients to both discuss their portfolios and answer their questions about what is happening in the financial markets and why the actions being taken are happening,? says Leslie Michael, CPA/PFS, and president of Michael Associates, LLC in Indianapolis. ?Through talking with our clients, we can maintain calm so that they do not make rash decisions. It's also a good time to talk with people about how much cash they have in any one particular institution.?

?In a few years,? says Jerry L. Love, CPA/PFS, and president of Davis, Kinard & Co., P.C. in Abilene, Texas, ?we?ll be able to look back on this and say we learned a few lessons.?

Love lived through the savings-and-loan debacle of the 1980s and today he can look back and say, ?Those S&L?s have been absorbed back into the market and most people made it out okay.?

At the end of the day, the market meltdown could serve well in the months and years ahead to remind investors and executives alike of the fundamentals of prudence: diversification, balance and patience.