Holiday Details

In addition to being closed on Thanksgiving Day, some MIDFLORIDA branch lobbies will also be closed Tuesday, 12/6 or Tuesday, 12/13 so that we may host two holiday celebrations for our employees. The drive thrus will remain open to serve you. Notices will be posted at each branch prior to the events. Thank you for allowing us to celebrate together.

Christmas Club Accounts

Get all your shopping plans formalized. Christmas Club checks will be mailed the first week of November.

Take a Sensible Step with a Laddered Portfolio

Investors are often disappointed to find out that the current interest rates are much lower than those of their previous fixed-income investments. Adopting a “laddered” portfolio approach allows an investor to minimize the interest rate risk that is associated with large, short-term fixed-income investments. Instead this strategy adopts a longer-range outlook and diversifies the maturity structure of fixed-income instruments within a portfolio. This enables the total return of fixed-income investments to be less adversely affected by interest rate fluctuations.

Of course, laddering is just one of many investment approaches. A financial planner or investment professional can help analyze each particular financial situation and adopt a strategy that is best for an investor’s needs. For more information, please contact one of the advisors of Heacock Financial Group.

Safety Tips

Beware of strangers – online.
Although you may miss a funny e-mail or perhaps a message or two, it is best when reading e-mail to be selective about the e-mails you choose to open. If you don’t recognize who the e-mail is from, it’s probably in your best interest to delete it.

Felt versus Ballpoint
You probably rarely think about the type of pen you use to write checks, but some felt pens have been found to be easily washed off of checks with common household products and then rewritten for fraudulent purposes.

What is Pharming?
Pharming, one of the newest forms of Internet fraud and identity theft, is domain spoofing which means you can be redirected without realizing it to a Web page that looks like the page you were intending to reach. In reality the site is duped and intended for fraud, and you should be wary when traveling to sites, especially for shopping. Shopping sites with the VeriSign network offer an additional layer of authentication and can be more trusted than others.