TED Talks

Warren Buffett’s annual letter to shareholders was released last weekend. For me, it is one of the most refreshing things to read every year. In my opinion, Mr. Buffett’s views about investing are more cogent than any other investor in history. Like no one else, he has a way of cutting through the jungle of “noise” and focusing on what really matters.

In December, I wrote a memo about some of the significant changes congress made to the retirement system beginning in 2020. One of the major subjects receiving attention is changes to the required minimum distribution rules. I discussed some of these changes in December but would like to revisit this to correct one thing and clarify another. 

On December 19^th, the United States Senate delivered an early Christmas present to Americans in the form of significant changes to the rules governing retirement plans and individual retirement accounts. Known as the “Secure Act,” most of the changes are being welcomed positively, although a few are being looked at like lumps of coal.

One of the hardest parts of investing is intelligently evaluating how things are going. This is especially true for publicly traded companies (stocks) or strategies (like mutual funds) that invest in them. The problem is financial assets tend to fluctuate wildly from year to year.

Of the many topics having to do with Social Security, without question, the hottest and probably least understood is the fiscal health of the program. I regularly hear people quip that Social Security is “going broke.” But is this really true?

My article on Social Security last month spurred several good conversations with clients. It’s obviously a topic of great interest to many so I’m going to stick with it for at least a few more columns.

On March 19th we hosted one of our regular lunch and learn events. The topic was Social Security. It usually draws a good crowd relative to others, but even I was surprised by how many people attended. The room was full with roughly 50 attendees. 

In mid-February, we hosted our annual “State of the Markets” breakfast. Once again the weather was crummy. In fact, the snow was bad enough that schools closed locally. That’s the second time in four years we’ve held our event on a day that school was canceled!

Market volatility has returned. With it, increased fear amongst investors. I’ve heard it coming from our clients and can see it in the way financial media is reporting news. For example, at the end of Q3, Amazon reported another quarter of record profitability, yet a Wall Street Journal article on October 26, 2018 focused on “slowing” sales.

Every election cycle we get a handful of clients inquiring about repositioning ahead of voters going to the polls. Our advice is virtually always the same, if your time frame and investment objectives haven’t changed, neither should your positioning.