Adios 2020



Rather than joining the 2021 predictions clogging your email box I will say goodbye to 2020 instead.  In 2020 we learned what doesn’t work, but we also learned a few items that worked well. This week we will stick to the positive. The positive doesn’t attract as many clicks, but 2020 taught us several items that will improve our wealth advisory businesses in the future.  



Don’t fight the Fed

This lesson has been around for years, but it now has a Hall of Fame worthy batting average. When the Fed shared that they would keep rates at zero for years we should have increased our equity allocation.     The other asset class that has benefited is residential real estate. Stock prices and home prices have increased during 2020. I missed this increase but  will keep this mantra on my laptop near my Apple sticker. 



Platforms

One of my smartest friends is always looking for platforms to buy. This year the platforms of Facebook, Google and Airbnb proved to be great investments that worked in your investment portfolio, but unfortunately caught the attention of government anti trust regulators.  Our adjusted approach should look for platforms that are exclusively rule followers.  Private Equity believes our wealth advisory industry is a good platform.  We just need to follow the government’s and our clients’ rules.  Easier said than done...


Read/Listen

The pandemic has given us extra time.  Hopefully we have used this time to read and increase our knowledge.  The challenge is we don’t know when the pandemic will end.  That is a fact but it is also a fact that it is always a good time to improve.  The internet and Podcasts can  help even though we don’t commute to our old office. The internet and podcasts can provide guidance from experts that we typically didn’t have before the pandemic.  They are bored too and we are the beneficiary with Oscar winning actors reading us bedtime stories.



Our brain stores more negative items than Darwin wanted.  We should purge the negative and keep the positive 2020 lessons in our free brain space.   See you next year. 

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