Timely Videos Coming Your Way!
In December, our team kicked off the year early with our annual team retreat. The focus this year was to identify ways to continue improving the client experience and deliver better investment outcomes as we continue delivering a gold-standard experience to the families that we work with.
This year, we are excited to further these efforts by expanding our use of video. In addition to text-only emails, we will now be using video to provide our market updates and Financial Planning commentary. We recently sent out our first video, so if you haven’t seen it check your inbox!
In additional team news, Ralph, Ginny, Kathy, and Chris participated in the Annual Promise Run 5K benefiting the Lakeland Regional Health Hollis Cancer Center. Additionally, Ginny currently serves as the Chair of the Lakeland Regional Health Foundation Board.
Markets: Where do we go from here?
While the recession fears that were pervasive in December have faded, so to have the cheap valuations we saw at the end of 2018. While markets do not appear expensive, we believe that companies will need to find sustained revenue growth to drive the markets significantly higher through year-end. Nevertheless, 2019 has been a great year for investors thus far as the S&P 500 has rallied more than 19% from the Christmas Eve low of 2,351 and is up more than 12% for 2019 as of March 14th. (Thompson Reuters)
With our expectations of a choppy and potentially frustrating rest of the year, we remain ever vigilant in our process to identify opportunities and managers that can add value to client portfolios regardless of the market conditions.
The Financial Crisis & Great Recession: Ten Years in the Rear-View Mirror
As you may recall, Keith wrote a series of letters* last October detailing his 1st hand view of the Financial Crisis that included various excerpts from a journal he kept throughout the Crisis and continues to this day. While October of ‘08 was when the Crisis hit “Fever Pitch”, markets continued to go down until their bottom in March of ‘09.
Since that time, the S&P 500 has rallied over 320% from its low of 666 in March of 2009 to its March 14th price of 2,808. (Thompson Reuters) Investors who maintained their resolve throughout the toughest market in a generation have been handsomely rewarded.
The precipitous fall in 2008-09 and the V-Shaped recovery that followed reinforce a time-tested necessity: proper asset allocation that aids an investor in weathering turbulent and uncertain times is a vital ingredient in the recipe for long-term investing success.
March 2019
**Content in this material is for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. No strategy assures a profit or protects against loss. Investing involves risk including loss of principal.**
