March 2018 Client Letter

Did exchange-traded funds (ETFs) cause the February stock market correction? “Nonsense,” is the response of many experts to that question. ETFs, provide access to baskets of securities that mirror indexes and can be bought and sold throughout the day, just like stocks. “ETFs are the future of investing. Just ask anyone!”

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February 2018 Client Letter

It’s wise to remember that investing in the stock market is not a strategy guaranteed to make you wealthy. In fact, the stock market at times can decrease your wealth. Twice over the last 19 years, once between 2000 and 2002 and again from 2007 to 2009, the stock market declined by more than 50%.

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January 2018 Client Letter

History has a way of repeating itself. In early 1995 my dad wrote about a math professor named Tom Nicely, who worked at Lynchburg College. Nicely was examining prime numbers using a group of five personal computers. While four of the computers gave Nicely the correct answer to a problem, 1.2126596294086, the fifth turned up a slightly different answer, 1.212659624891157804.

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December 2017 Client Letter

One of 2017’s surprising outcomes was the lack of stock market volatility. We are in the midst of the second-longest bull market on record and we haven’t seen as much as a 3% correction in the S&P 500 in over a year. That’s a record.

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November 2017 Client Letter

From September 1985 through September 2017, my dad spent each and every month diligently researching, preparing, and writing his monthly investment newsletter, The Intelligence Report (IR).

Readers of IR are aware of the high regard my dad has for Ben Graham, the father of value investing and one of the most successful investors of all time. My dad believes Graham authored the only investment book most investors will ever need. “If you have read The Intelligent Investor cover to cover, you are head and shoulders above the vast majority of the investing public. To this day, the amount of investing insight and wisdom packed into this single volume remains unmatched.” Some of Graham’s most valuable advice was to the defensive investor. For example, Graham wrote, “One of the most persuasive tests of high quality is an uninterrupted record of dividend payments for the last 20 years or more. Indeed, the defensive investor might be justified in limiting his purchases to those meeting this test.”

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