 Exciting announcement: We are delighted to announce we hired a new addition to our team, Martha Clark, who will be joining us October 18th! Martha will be helping support Ansley and all of our clients as we train her in our industry and she works towards earning her securities licenses. We have been searching for a few months and were blown away with the high quality of candidates seeking to join us in this new position, but we think it will become obvious to everyone quickly why we chose Martha. A new summa cum laude graduate in math from Sewanee and treasurer of her sorority, Martha also has experience with programming, website design, Microsoft Office, and had two critical traits that we believe will make her a valuable team member: she’s a consummate learner with a brilliant mind and she cares about people. Please greet her with a warm welcome, especially when she calls to help schedule our review meetings! https://www.linkedin.com/in/martha-clark-387a49281/  Working remotely: As you know, Matthew is overseas in Scotland pursuing his soccer dreams until December. After the encouragement of some friends, clients, family and my office, I decided to spend a few weeks in Edinburgh working remotely and enjoying some of the time watching him play and enjoying the country. It is truly once in a lifetime. I plan on being very accessible during normal business hours and expect to be as productive as when I’m in the office—all except the ability to have face to face meetings. My apartment has high speed wifi and I’ll be utilizing Zoom or my cell for calls. Don’t hesitate to reach out via email if you have questions or concerns and of course Chris and Ansley are manning our corporate HQ (with Martha joining them on the 18th.) I will return on the 28th. The Important Race Few People Are Watching (NOT red vs blue; Fed rates vs inflation; East vs West) If you’re paying any attention to the news, things are kinda crazy out there. We have a resurgence of interest rates hurting bond returns and cost of lending while the equity market has seen almost an official correction. Politics haven’t become any less divisive as we seem to be headed towards a presidential rematch. I for one am not excited to see a sequel to this movie and I marvel at the unmooring of some news sources from reality in favor of, dare I say, propaganda. Governments across the world have borrowed and continue to borrow at unprecedented rates. War in Ukraine has continued (though happily without significant escalation) while Israel just declared war on Hamas after a surprise attack. Tensions continue to grow between the West and China-Russia. Several books are out now talking about cycles in history indicating we are moving toward difficult times (like The Fourth Turning is Here, by Neil Howe). Gee Matt, thanks a lot! Got anything good to say? Actually, yes. Quite a bit, even though we can’t ignore all the challenges we have ahead of us. Part of our job is to read and stay informed on current events and make decisions as objectively as we are capable. I’m not a robot, so I’m also guilty of having feelings and opinions on all that is happening. But, I also have an analytical brain and work hard to objectively understand our historical context in both the markets and history. And there are many reasons to remain optimistic, even if we need to remain vigilant to the challenges. We are in the middle of one of the most rapid growths in technological innovation in world history—while at the same time, more of this technology is open for anyone to utilize. Throughout history, technology innovation has typically had two economic impacts: it boosts overall productivity and reduces the cost of goods. This means they will likely have a positive impact on GDP growth and deflationary impact on interest rates. Of course, the rate of growth, adoption and final products are difficult to predict, but this is what I call ‘the important race few people are watching’. Can the productivity gains boost GDP such that we can grow our way through our large government debt lessening need for austerity and/or higher taxes? Can the deflationary impacts of innovation meaningfully reduce inflation so that the Fed has the ability to pause or reduce interest rates? Will technological developments discover less expensive (or more efficient) sources of renewable energy? Will the democratized use of AI and access to the internet lead to wider and improved access to education? Will these new sources of productivity reduce the scarcity that can exacerbate global competition? Will the combination of these technologies with medical innovation lead to a new era of life saving treatments or drugs? Continuing to play with AI, I have discovered: it can teach courses on nearly any topic based upon your input of skill level; it can summarize long articles to reduce reading time (or help you determine if you want to read a longer piece; it can help you write programs (combined with open source code of GitHub); it can help you explore new ideas on topics where you have a deep understanding. Even though still imperfect and requires cross checking and human common sense to supervise, it truly is the most in-depth, accessible, and interactive encyclopedia ever created. It just doesn’t have pictures yet! Of course, I know innovation will not solve all of our problems. And indeed, it could create problems of its own. But, I also know there are armies of brilliant scientists and entrepreneurs working hard on solutions to these problems. This is a race I will watch and support with enthusiasm! Finally, I’ll close this section with some investment wisdom I’ve always found helpful, one of Buffett’s most profitable tips: “Be fearful when others are greedy, greedy when others are fearful.” Buying opportunities ahead, and we will work hard to try and buy and hold what is real. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions. |
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