Here We Go Again…
Our careers as financial advisers will be measured by the number of crises we guide our clients through.
Early in your career you think they're all different, requiring an answer that will impress your clients. However, there comes a day when you discover an important truth: they are all the same, and the message to your clients is very simple: do nothing. Your portfolio was set up correctly on day one. My job is to ensure you stick with the historically appropriate, built with the future in mind, investment portfolio.
This does not mean that we should be condescending to our clients, many of whom have been programmed by the media to look for a sophisticated answer. The fear they experience during uncertain times is natural. Indeed, we often feel it ourselves. But we owe it to ourselves and to them not to pander to this fear and make mistakes which the market will expose in hindsight. Advising them to change strategy temporarily might sound clever and justify our being, but it's not our calling.
In times like these they deserve to hear the unvarnished truth from you, spoken with care.
Needless to say, I will not be making any short term changes to my family's portfolio. Neither will I be facilitating such a change for any of my clients. This is not a prediction for how the market will react in the next few days and weeks, because nobody knows this. I believe it's the right course of action regardless of what unfolds.
It's in times like these that we earn our fee many times over.
I'm sending a short memo to my clients tomorrow urging them to exercise discipline and patience during the times ahead. The same has been provided to all HUM Premium subscribers, many of whom will be sending the text to clients under their own names. A second essay has been written for subscribers this month, touching on the importance of not letting anything breach the family's financial fortress.
If you are not a HUM Premium subscriber, please feel free (without further permission) to send the enclosed PDF memo to your clients in any private format you wish, maintaining the HUM branding.
