Since the election of Donald Trump the stock market has had an incredible run up. Regardless of your political views the facts are the facts and your money and wealth don’t really care who is president. Our job is to play the cards as they are dealt regardless of who is in charge at the White House.

The old saying is in play, “what goes up is sure to come down” unless we take steps to lock in our gains and protect against future loss. If you are in mutual funds you have no doubt experienced the ups and downs of the market. Many people think that’s just the way it is, and to some extent they are correct. However, there is no law that says you have to play by those rules with your money.

There are strategies that allow you to participate in most of any market gains but none of the market losses. You can accomplish this through a strategy called indexing. One of the most popular ways to practice indexing is through the product of a fixed indexed annuity.This is one of three major classes of annuities (with thousands of products between hundreds of companies available) with the other two classes being a fixed annuity and a variable annuity.

A fixed annuity will guarantee your money against any downside and promise to pay you more than you will be able to get at a bank.Now many fixed annuities are paying 2.75% to 3.25% depending on the actual terms and carrier offering the annuity.The upside is you know you will never lose money and that your money will grow every year regardless of what the stock market does.The downside is that during large run ups, like we are currently experiencing, your account will not experience the big run ups but rather a much smaller gain. There are also early withdrawal fees for pulling money out of the annuity early (this will be true for every class of annuity so be sure that you understand how much and how long those penalties exist).  Fixed annuities can be a great play for very conservative investors who want protections but need more return than a savings account or CD’s at the bank.