Letter to Clients: 1st Quarter 2014
We’ve just entered the new year, making it the perfect time to take stock of 2013 and share some thoughts on how your portfolio can be positioned as we continue down the road called 2014.
Insights & Other Important Communication
We’ve just entered the new year, making it the perfect time to take stock of 2013 and share some thoughts on how your portfolio can be positioned as we continue down the road called 2014.
Have market losses ever made you sick? If so, according to a recent study by Joseph Engelberg and Christopher Parsons associate professors of finance at the University of California at San Diego, you are not alone. After examining three decades of hospital admission data they concluded that hospitalizations rise on days when shares fall and that “people are hospitalized disproportionately for mental conditions”. Their research shows that equity market losses appeared to induce 3700 market related hospitalizations a year in California alone. When the data is extrapolated nationally, using the Census Bureau data showing the average hospitalization event costs around $21,000, they estimate the U.S. economic impact to be roughly $650 million a year.
Dear Clients & Friends: Is it just me, or does each passing year seem to go faster and faster? It is hard to believe that we are entering the final quarter of 2013. Soon the holidays will be over and it will be 2014. Let’s take a moment to examine market performance, discuss the elements of an effective plan, ask if bonds are too risky or if stocks are set to fail, and conclude with what all this means for your portfolio. But before we do, I have some exciting news to announce.
I grew up in the 1970's and graduated High School in the early 1980's. I grew up watching Happy Days and remember wondering how the leather jackets, slicked back hair, and the poodle ever came into fashion. Meanwhile my high school yearbook is filled with pictures of kids with bright pastel outfits, huge round glasses, and girls with big hair. As a kid in the 70's the 50's seemed like ancient history but it was only 20 years before. Now I wonder what kids today think about the 1980's with an appreciation for the irony that my 30th High School reunion has already been held.