The ABCs of Investing

Lowrie Sargent and Rosemary Weymouth

The ABCs of Investing March 12

The Camden Public Library will host “The ABCs of Investing” on Tuesday, March 12, at 7:00 pm. The session will be led by Lowrie Sargent and Rosemary Weymouth of Better Investing, a non-profit organization providing investment information, education, and support to create successful lifetime investors. The talk is part of the library’s Financial Literacy presented with the support of the Camden National Bank. The follow-up to the session on “Advanced Investing” will be on April 9, led by Lowrie Sargent. Sargent recently passed the Universal Investment Advisor Law Exam and is a vice-president and Investment Advisor Representative for Maine Asset Management in Bangor.

The Financial Literacy Series is a monthly presentation on a sequence of financial topics to help individuals and families get their budgets on firm footing. The monthly series offers tools and resources for community members and families seeking to improve their financial standing by reducing their debt, budgeting for college and retirement, or by creating a more effective investment portfolio.

ABCs of Investing Synopsis – Tuesday, March 12, 7:00 to 8:30 pm

This class will explore how to identify your financial needs and abilities and how you can satisfy those needs through various types of investments with a primary emphasis on stocks. The benefits and difficulties of investing in different asset categories will be considered. We will learn the differences between mutual funds, ETFs, and individual stocks. The differences between brokers and financial advisers will also be explained. Basic valuation methods including fundamental and technical analysis will be compared with recommendations on how your use of analysis can help you select the right investments.  The strategy of diversification and its benefits to your investments will be reviewed. Lastly, we will identify free sources of information about investing in the stock market.

Advanced Investing Class Synopsis – Tuesday, April 9, 7:00 to 8:30 pm

This is a class for those who already have a basic understanding of the stock market. We will explore more Fundamental and Technical Analysis including forecasting methods and chart pattern recognition. Put and Call Options will be discussed both in terms of how they work and if they are appropriate for you. The majority of the time will be spent on identifying investment strategies for up, down, and sideways markets and how you can benefit from understanding when to use them. The goal is to allow you to develop your investing advantage so that you can be more successful.

The library will offer a free copy of Quicken, a family budgeting program, to all attendees at any event in the series. The workshops are free, and you need not attend the whole sequence to benefit from any of the workshops. The Camden National Bank sponsors this educational series.

The Camden Public Library promotes financial literacy through ongoing speaker presentations and other onsite and online resources, such as financial planning subscriptions to Valueline and Morningstar, periodicals and magazines such as Kiplingers, Money Magazine, Wall Street Journal, and The Economist, and books and audiobooks. Both the Camden National Bank and the Camden Public Library support financial literacy in the belief that an informed public will make better personal and financial decisions.