3/20/2020 - Faith Investment Services client communication
Dear Valued Clients:
It is an honor that you and your family have entrusted me to be your Financial Adviser. There are time frames when communications and client meetings with you are very easy. However, when conversations are harder, it is more important than ever that we stay in touch. I saw a statistic that after September 11, 2001 and the Financial Crisis in 2008 that nearly 82% of all Financial Advisers went silent with their clients. They did not send out communications and they did not take phone calls. That means that only 18% were there for their clients. My first priority is that each of you know that I care and I will do everything in my power to serve.
As a financial adviser, I stand ready to help you, my valued client, with your concerns about the economy. Our client appointments have focused on these core principles:
1) It is always appropriate to know your investment objective and invest according to that objective. If you want long-term growth and don't need access to the money long-term, you invest in certain ways. If you need more immediate access or income, you invest differently. There is generally no cause to panic if you have invested according to your objectives.
2) It is important to know your risk tolerance and invest accordingly. This is a personal feeling about money, markets, and future stability and no one else can decide that for you. Are you aggressive? Conservative? Somewhere in the middle? Hopefully this was clearly determined when you made an investment and you are in an appropriate risk range.
3) Finally, it is very important to understand that you and your money are separate entities. Your existence, hope, strength, health, etc. are not equated with your money. Hold steady!
So if your risk tolerance was such that you are invested in the market, you will find the link “Missing the Best days in the Market” to be of interest. “Time, not timing, is the best way to capitalize in the stock market gains.” We believe it is generally unwise (each situation is unique…) to sell low. Please feel free to reach out to talk about your specific situation!
If your risk tolerance was such that you are in a guaranteed (fixed) position, you are not affected by the ups and downs of the market in a direct way.
Some folks are in a blended position, some market – some fixed, if that was appropriate for their risk tolerance. This is possibly a “best of both worlds” situation at a time like this.
Maybe you don’t know where you fall on this spectrum. You understood your investments when you started them, but you don’t remember exactly how they are impacted by a downturn. PLEASE feel free to reach out! This is a great time to get a reminder of what you are invested in, talk about why you’ve done it, and see if anything needs to be realigned.
SPECIAL THOUGHTS FOR MARKET-BASED INVESTORS
From a thought perspective, what we are experiencing right now is a “Black Swan Event”.
- A black swan is an extremely rare event with severe consequences. It cannot be predicted beforehand, though many claim it should be predictable after the fact.
- Black swan events can cause catastrophic damage to an economy.
- Reliance on standard forecasting tools can both fail to predict and potentially increase vulnerability to black swans by propagating risk and offering false security.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blackswan.asp. Updated 3/11/20
On February 19th (ONE Month ago!), the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 29,348. Yesterday, the Dow was at 19,903 and was as low as 19,200 earlier that afternoon. That is a drop of 10,000 points in ONE MONTH.
These are the times when fear and emotion can overrun faith and logic. My encouragement to you is to make financial decisions and make life decisions based on faith and logic and not on fear and emotion. You all know the typical saying, “Buy low and sell high”. That makes logical sense and in times like these we have to have the faith to stick to that strategy. I think you would all be in agreement that is how we make money, “Buy low and sell high”. What does fear and emotion cause a lot of clients to do in situations like this? Fear and emotion causes people to “Sell low and buy high.” We just dropped 10,000 points. If hindsight was 20/20, then we would all look like geniuses if we sold at Dow 29,300. However, remember what I just said about a black swan event being unpredictable. Did anyone see the markets dropping 10,000 points in 30 days? I promise you that I did not. While we cautioned market-based clients about a correction, we couldn’t predict the time or the scale of this.
Things may look bleak right now. However, do not act in fear or out of emotion. Act in faith and logic.
