When someone’s rock climbing, there are two different kinds. The first kind is where you climb 10-30 feet and then you drive in a pin and you kind of make sure that if you fall, that’s the furthest you fall. The other kind is something you might’ve heard of free climbing. And that’s where if you climb up and up and up, there’s no safety net if you fall.

So what does rock climbing have to do with retirement planning or with investing? Well, if you think about it, investing is very similar. There are two different ways to do it. What most people do is they just invest their money in stocks or bonds or other products and they’re climbing steadily upward. But if everything falls, all their investments go down, they’re going to come down with it and there are no pins driven in.

Now some people drive some pins in with CDs or money markets or fixed annuities or something like that, and that’s really smart. But there is another investment out there called a fixed index account. And a fixed index account bases you on the market in such a way that if the market goes up, you go up with it and they’ll usually cap you out at a certain percent. But if you fall, you also can’t go below a certain point. It’s a great middle-ground because it’s not as thrilling to have such safe investments. Why do people free climb? Because it’s thrilling. They can go up and up and up and get all this adventure. It’s the kind of risk that stocks and that’s mutual funds are designed for, and it’s great if that’s what you’re looking for. So if you’re thinking, “Okay, I still want to be able to grow, I still want to have some excitement, but I want to be able to protect my assets,” you might want to look at fixed index investments. They will make sure that if you fall, there’s a little pin drilled in and you don’t go all the way down to the bottom.

Securities and advisory services offered through Madison Avenue Securities, LLC, member FINRA SIPC, and a registered investment advisor. Madison Avenue Securities, and Don Anders are not affiliated companies.