Pat Schabo lived with a twinkle in her eye and the kind of work ethic that went beyond time sheets and job descriptions. During her 25-year career at Winch Financial, she helped build the company from an intriguing idea in a developing industry, to an award-winning establishment with a wide-ranging, loyal client base and more than 18 employees. When she retired in 2008, Pat left a legacy of cheerful chatter and keen attention to the task at hand. “We had so many laughs over the years,” said client services specialist Kris Kersten. “She made the day go by so fast and she was always there with a smile.” Pat passed away on Monday, May 22. She was 84-years old. “I will miss Pat and I thank her for supporting me every day at work for more than a decade; standing me up straight; giving me gentle, firm encouraging nudges to carry on,” said Winch Financial President Sam Winch. “Her love, care and understanding never escaped me. I will never forget her kindness and grace….and the occasional risqué story. There are not enough thank you’s to say to begin to show my forever appreciation and gratefulness for every minute I got to share with Pat.” Pat had a lasting impact not just on Winch Financial employees, but on their families as well. “She was always there for my mom and dad,” said Tanya Winch, now a financial advisor and member of the company’s board of directors. “She was solid as a rock, loyal, very efficient and extremely kind to us. I remember her hands always being busy. I adored her and (her husband) Donnie. What gems!” The stories of Pat’s exploits and her cheerful approach to problem solving lingered long after her retirement. There was the time she and her coworkers spent a cold March afternoon tramping through icy mud in their work shoes to find Christina’s lost dog, Maxie. “When… | Read More »
Month: May 2023
The difference between a Mutual Fund and an ETF
I can count the number of times I have golfed on my fingers. Before taking a swing, I look over the various clubs at my disposal. I think to myself, each club has an extremely important purpose and I must choose very carefully. No matter which club I choose a triple bogey lies in my future. You can in a sense think of ETFs and Mutual funds as different golf clubs. They are almost the same tool but can have times when one makes more sense than the other. Both ETFs and mutual funds are pooled investments that can hold a variety of investments inside of them. Most ETFs are passively managed, with fewer moves occurring inside relative to Mutual Funds. One difference is that ETFs trade like a stock, so you can buy and sell during the trading day. Mutual Funds calculate their NAV or Net Asset Value after the close of the market each day. In golf terms, if a round of nine holes was a trading day and I was a mutual fund, I would only know my score after the round was done. My friend ETF would keep track as we played. Another differentiator is the cost. ETFs are cheaper on average than mutual funds. As you may suspect there is more than just cost to consider here. Mutual fund’s higher expenses come with the benefit of teams of industry professionals and researchers looking to enhance their fund’s return and protect it from any holdings that become undesirable. In essence, the ETFs take more of a set it and forget it approach. ETF managers pick a target like a large stock index and try to replicate it as closely as possible. Mutual Funds can be a little more flexible in their strategy as they are not strictly trying to keep the same weighting as an index. So which fund should I put with which type of… | Read More »