7THE SECRETS Your Broker Never Told You A seismic shift has taken place in financial planning for people approaching retirement. When that change came along, author Thomas Helbig was more than ready for it. What is the new investment landscape all about? Americans planning for retirement have lost faith in risky, Wall Street-style investments. Meanwhile, new investment tools have come along, developed by the insurance sector of the financial services industry, to replace those high-risk vehicles. St. Louis-based Thomas Helbig, who began advising clients in 1977, has been specializing in these new-breed investments since their emergence. Always one who emphasized safety and loss-prevention, Helbig became an early adopter of the new portfolio options and his clients have learned, to their happiness, how: - principal can be protected, - a logical plan can be followed, - substantial growth of the portfolio can be realized and - can produce more guaranteed income regardless of Wall Street's performance "I may be a financial advisor operating in extremely volatile times, but I don't toss and turn at night. I know my clients' funds are well protected." For 43 years Thomas Helbig founder of The Retirement Advisory Group has watched several trends in the retirement planning market come and go. But one thing has always remained consistent with all of his clients over the years, not one of them ever lost a dime of principal or gains as a result of following his advice. That is a statement not many Financial Advisors can make.