2019 Year End: Hindsight Should Not Be Your 2020
Quarterly Commentary
Jan 24, 2020
Hindsight should never be the reason for adjusting an investment portfolio. Period. Positive or negative performance of the past has come and gone; it cannot be changed. However, analyzing historical data can help understand and manage risk going forward…
Q3 2019: The Fulcrum of Investing Reality – Return vs. Risk
Quarterly Commentary
Oct 25, 2019
Time heals most wounds – or does it? Just a little more than a year has passed since what would have been an “optimistic” third quarter check point in 2018. Although the close of a “quarter” (for example, September 30th each year) is arbitrary by nature, it may not be arbitrary to many investors who use a quarter-end report to look back and wonder how their investments have been faring. However, a common story often occurs. Somewhere – somewhere out there, is a product that has inevitably performed well, and of course the investor missed out. Although many recognize the fine print, “past performance is not indicative of future results”, it would seem that few heed its warning.
Q2 2019: Yesterday’s Headlines Not Necessarily Tomorrow’s Problems
Quarterly Commentary
Jul 17, 2019
Yesterday’s headlines may not necessarily be tomorrow’s problems. Investors would be wise to remember that a gain today, can still be a loss tomorrow. Speculation and betting on the near-term direction of any market is a fool’s errand. Instead, we believe having disciplined investment and risk management processes, regardless of what the markets are doing, is the key to long-term investment success. Afterall, you can’t control the market’s performance, but you can control process and risk management.
Q1 2019: CLIMBING PARADOX MOUNTAIN
Quarterly Commentary
Apr 18, 2019
The market may give, take away, and give again – but that shouldn’t distract an investor from focusing on their long-term goals of preserving and growing capital, especially in today’s environment where there’s a lot of noise. In seeking long-term appreciation within a financial goal, our view is that there is no need to be binary in bets.
2018 Year End: Rewarding An Investor For Discipline and Risk Management
Quarterly Commentary
Jan 16, 2019
Investing is not a riskless process and returns do not materialize in a forty-five-degree angle. As evident in 2018, returns can come and go very quickly. This is why it is imperative to consider risk first. While it is easy to get lost in the noise of various metrics, academic jargon, news, and “conventional wisdom”, risk to an investor is as SIMPLE as drawdown of capital.
Q3 2018: An Investor’s Internal Trade War
Quarterly Commentary
Oct 17, 2018
Investors seem to be struggling with their own tradeoffs including which headline to trade, resulting in an emotion driven see-saw of chasing returns then capitulation.
Q2 2018: Finding The Path of Least Resistance
Quarterly Commentary
Jul 17, 2018
Looking for trends that might not exist, can cause one to miss trends that do persist. Investors are always trying to outsmart one another, constantly guessing what will happen tomorrow with today’s news. Whether it is reacting based on fear, or on greed, or maybe just impatience; investing irrationally based on emotions never seem to have a consistent outcome. Especially in the recent months where volatility has been higher but equity prices trended sideways, it may be prudent to invest with patience in a disciplined process.
Q1 2018: How Risk and Volatility Are Different
Quarterly Commentary
Apr 16, 2018
Many investors may believe the term "risk" and "volatility" are synonymous. The key difference is that while volatility can come and go, risk to the investor is always there.
