March 14, 2025
It has been 5 years
With this week marking five years since Covid related shutdowns, Chris Boyd, Jeff Perry, and Russ Ball begin this episode with reminiscing of where they were five years ago and sharing the related personal and financial lessons. The trio explores the...
With this week marking five years since Covid related shutdowns,
Chris Boyd, Jeff Perry, and Russ Ball begin this episode with reminiscing of where they
were five years ago and sharing the related personal and financial lessons. The trio
explores the similarities of current stock market movements with the recent tariff policy
to the uncertainty caused by Covid. The value of working with a financial advisor during
turbulent times is discussed, including financial and behavioral consideration. Chris
closes out the segment explaining why having a comprehensive financial plan is critical
to long-term financial success.
For more information or to reach Chris Boyd or Jeff Perry, click the following link:
https://www.wealthenhancement.com/s/advisor-teams/amr
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Welcome to Something More with Chris Boyd.
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Chris Boyd is a Certified Financial Planner Practitioner
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and Senior Vice President and Financial Advisor at
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Wealth Enhancement Group, one of the nation's largest
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registered investment advisors.
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We call it Something More because we'd like
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to talk not only about those important dollar
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and cents issues, but also the quality of
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life issues that make the money matters matter.
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Here he is, your fulfillment facilitator, your partner
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in prosperity, advising clients on Cape Cod and
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across the country.
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Here's your host, Jay Christopher Boyd.
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Thanks for being with us for the Something
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More with Chris Boyd show.
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You know, I was thinking it's been 17,
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almost 18 years that we've been doing this
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show.
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We've seen a lot of market conditions along
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the way when we started out.
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It was even before the problems of the
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financial crisis.
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We helped our audience kind of navigate some
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of the challenges going through that.
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But more recently, by the way, everybody, I'm
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joined with Jeff Perry and Russ Ball of
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the AMR team from Wealth Enhancement Group.
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Guys, I was thinking it's just about five
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years since the pandemic hit.
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And I thought maybe we just take a
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moment to do a little bit of retrospective,
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but also maybe to try to take a
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moment to derive some lessons from extreme experiences
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that come along in the markets.
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I know we have a lot of clients
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and listeners who are probably a little bit
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anxious as markets have been quite volatile in
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the last several weeks.
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And maybe there's some opportunities to draw some
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lessons from other experiences as well.
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Let me just start by saying, I'd be
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interested in hearing from you guys where you
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were.
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What was that song, When the World Stopped
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Turning?
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Essentially, I was thinking about how Kristen and
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I were out with friends on the weekend
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where we were at a show in Boston
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with hundreds of our closest...
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No, I'm kidding.
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Hundreds of people in this theater in Boston
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at one minute and out at restaurants and
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things.
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And within just a few days, everything started
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closing down.
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The athletics, professional teams, the basketball...
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I remember the basketball teams particularly, where it
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was like, they're not having games anymore.
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I think there were some...
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There was a basketball player who...
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I forget which one that had COVID was
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still...
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And then they were like, oh, isolation.
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And then all this kind of thing.
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It was like, then the whole team got
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it, this kind of thing.
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So they said, all right, no one's gonna...
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They weren't gonna play.
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And then New York City seemed like the
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hotbed of...
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In the United States, there was a couple
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of boats off the coast that had some
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people that they were quarantined.
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They weren't able to land and then dock
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or whatever.
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And then it was this thing, we're not
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gonna let it into our country kind of
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mindset.
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And long and behold, I'm sure it was
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already here.
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We just didn't know it.
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My son lived in New York City at
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the time.
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And we said, it sounds like things are
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gonna shut down soon.
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Why don't I come and get you?
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We don't know how long it's gonna be.
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Why don't you hang out here on the
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Cape instead of being in the city with
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who knows what going on?
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And maybe it'd be safer kind of mindset.
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So I remember driving down to New York
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on highways that were just desolate.
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Nobody was out.
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And the world had stopped at this point.
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It was crazy.
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And the easiest drive I ever had going
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to and from New York City.
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But in any case, tell me what you
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guys remember where you were.
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Who wants to go first?
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Jeff, I remember it very well because two
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important things were happening in my world on
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March 13th, five years to the day.
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We were selling our house that we had
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for many years in downtown Sandwich.
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So we had a closing that day.
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And I walked into Doug Cabral's office.
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Doug's been a guest on the show because
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he's handling the closing for the buyers.
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And that morning was the morning, as you
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indicated, Chris, that things started to get serious.
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We were hearing more substantial news and possible
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shutdown.
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So we were all talking like, should we
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be using different pens?
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Should we be in the same room?
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And it was just kind of joking conversation
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at the moment.
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An eerie awareness though, right?
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That's right.
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Something had changed that day for me.
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That's when I noticed it at that closing.
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And then, so we had the closing.
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And I was leaving the closing, calling my
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son, because I had just heard we had
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tickets to the Celtics game that night.
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Another thing you mentioned.
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I had just heard that our game was
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the first game that was canceled.
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So I was calling him to tell him.
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And so, yeah, it seems like a lot
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longer than five years ago.
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That's amazing, right?
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Yeah.
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I remember it was funny.
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We had a client in maybe January of
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that year who had said, there's this crazy
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thing going on in China and I'm really
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nervous.
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I want to pull everything out.
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And I was like, are you sure?
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That seems kind of crazy.
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Maybe that's extreme.
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I didn't say crazy, of course.
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But I said, oh, that's extreme.
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What are the odds?
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This kind of thing.
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So she did, she pulled everything out.
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Of course, genius, right?
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On the other hand- Did she put
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it back?
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She never put it back in.
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She missed out on a lot anyway.
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We'll come back and talk about markets.
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Yeah.
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That's a good subject to talk about.
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But it was at this point that you're
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talking about, maybe just before this, that as
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a team, we started talking about, well, what
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if this really does evolve into something that
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there seems to be this growing concern around?
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How should we be navigating that?
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And so I think one of the things
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we want to talk about in a few
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minutes is just how did we, what might
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we derive from this?
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Got some lessons.
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But I want to hear about Russ.
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Russ, you lived in New York City, didn't
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you?
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Yeah.
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I was in New York City at the
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time.
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And I remember in probably about December of
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the previous year, I was reading about COVID.
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It was way at the bottom of the
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news app.
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It was like, oh, by the way, there's
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a virus in China.
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And I remember reading it and thinking, oh,
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that's, I had an eerie feeling about it.
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And I started following it from that point.
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And I was up in Spain.
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I remember it was like, it was kind
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of moving around the world a little bit.
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Exactly.
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And I think it was around that time,
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probably like January or maybe February, I started
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buying, I was an early adopter of masks
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on the subway.
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And I was, you know, people were looking
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at me like I was crazy.
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I was trying to convince my girlfriend to
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wear a mask.
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Because it was only like, at that time,
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you only saw people from Asia in airports,
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wearing masks, I think, prior to this.
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It was unusual.
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But they had bird flu.
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And they had been through some of these
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kind of things before in other parts of
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the world where they had grown accustomed maybe
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to masks and so forth.
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Right.
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Right.
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And so I was definitely an outlier in
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the subway.
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My girlfriend was trying to get as far
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away from me as she could.
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And you hadn't gotten it until just recently.
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Exactly.
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Exactly.
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I was extremely cautious.
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So in any case, I was following what
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was going on.
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And I was watching pretty closely when you
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start hearing about these cases in the city,
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like doubling, tripling overnight.
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And similar to Jeff, I was out at
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a show at Radio City.
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I think it was like a Thursday night.
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And, you know, pretty big crowd in the
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audience.
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No one really seemed to miss the show
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because of all this stuff that was going
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on.
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But next day, they shut down Broadway.
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And I was like, OK, that's a pretty
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good sign that things are escalating here.
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So I sounded the alarm bells for my
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family.
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And I was like, let's all get in
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the car.
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Let's get out of the city.
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Let's start there.
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My dad always had this thing about, you
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know, getting trapped in Manhattan if there was
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ever any kind of emergency, if they shut
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the bridges down.
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So I was like, let's get let's get
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in New Jersey.
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Went to my grandma's house in Jersey and
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hunkered down with her for about a week.
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As things started escalating, you start hearing these
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horror stories in New York City that, you
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know, the hospitals were getting overrun pretty quickly.
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There were these crazy stories about at the
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time.
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I was obsessed with the news and the
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New York Times app page that I was
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on the app, but they have on their
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website some details about tracking COVID in various
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locations by counties.
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You know, I became obsessed with that stuff
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because there were these horror stories about people
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who just would die these horrible deaths with
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they couldn't breathe, you know, with the ventilators
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and all this.
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And remember how ventilators were at a premium
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and they're just there were not enough of
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them and the hospitals were being overrun.
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And then it was like, well, should you
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go?
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Should you stay home?
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It's just unclear what to do.
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And I remember in those early days with
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makeshift masks, we didn't have the masks that
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you were an early adopter for.
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00:10:49,640 --> 00:10:51,520
So we were getting cloth masks.
271
00:10:51,760 --> 00:10:53,960
It was just something, you know, and then
272
00:10:53,960 --> 00:10:57,260
going to the grocery stores, wiping down every
273
00:10:57,260 --> 00:10:58,900
box that came home.
274
00:10:59,060 --> 00:11:03,420
It was like, it was just segregating packages.
275
00:11:03,420 --> 00:11:06,720
And yeah, the most memorable thing that followed
276
00:11:06,720 --> 00:11:08,720
was my mom was in an assisted living
277
00:11:09,340 --> 00:11:11,200
and I went to visit her one day
278
00:11:11,200 --> 00:11:14,360
and couldn't get in doors are locked and
279
00:11:14,360 --> 00:11:15,060
no visitors.
280
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And my mom lived in a continuing care
281
00:11:19,400 --> 00:11:25,680
retirement, independent living, and they too were isolated
282
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because of course it was the elderly who
283
00:11:29,380 --> 00:11:34,740
were the most susceptible to having other issues
284
00:11:34,740 --> 00:11:39,500
that that became the most prone to being
285
00:11:39,500 --> 00:11:41,580
hit hardest by COVID.
286
00:11:42,420 --> 00:11:44,660
You know, I remember thinking to, you know,
287
00:11:44,700 --> 00:11:46,320
when you saw those, you were talking about
288
00:11:46,320 --> 00:11:49,180
the hospitals being overrun and then they had
289
00:11:49,180 --> 00:11:53,740
these refrigerated trucks with just the huge number
290
00:11:53,740 --> 00:11:57,260
of deaths and they didn't have ability to
291
00:11:57,260 --> 00:11:58,120
deal with it all.
292
00:11:58,120 --> 00:12:00,600
It was just, and then he couldn't have
293
00:12:00,600 --> 00:12:00,960
a funeral.
294
00:12:01,120 --> 00:12:05,480
I'm sure you all knew people who died
295
00:12:05,480 --> 00:12:06,060
from COVID.
296
00:12:06,820 --> 00:12:08,900
My mom died with COVID.
297
00:12:09,300 --> 00:12:11,800
She had so many other things, but we
298
00:12:11,800 --> 00:12:14,080
were not able to have a public funeral.
299
00:12:14,240 --> 00:12:17,480
We just had a family gathering, you know,
300
00:12:17,540 --> 00:12:20,700
at the cemetery and so much was changing.
301
00:12:21,300 --> 00:12:25,000
And along with all that, you know, nervousness
302
00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:28,020
and concern in the world, the market started
303
00:12:28,020 --> 00:12:28,380
to.
304
00:12:28,840 --> 00:12:29,160
Yeah.
305
00:12:29,360 --> 00:12:31,940
I remember my aunt Rita died in that
306
00:12:31,940 --> 00:12:32,360
time.
307
00:12:33,020 --> 00:12:38,000
My wife's cousin who was, you know, similar
308
00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:38,840
in age died.
309
00:12:39,600 --> 00:12:43,320
You know, so definitely I think everybody at
310
00:12:43,320 --> 00:12:46,840
some point had some connection to loss related
311
00:12:46,840 --> 00:12:47,460
to COVID.
312
00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:50,020
Yeah.
313
00:12:50,200 --> 00:12:52,380
No family, unfortunately, but there were a couple
314
00:12:52,380 --> 00:12:53,660
of people in our building that we were
315
00:12:53,660 --> 00:12:58,080
close to that passed away prior to the
316
00:12:58,080 --> 00:13:00,340
realization of what was even going on.
317
00:13:00,460 --> 00:13:02,000
It was like some kind of crazy pneumonia.
318
00:13:02,460 --> 00:13:04,320
I think we had a client who died
319
00:13:04,320 --> 00:13:05,300
of that.
320
00:13:05,620 --> 00:13:07,160
I really wonder if it was.
321
00:13:08,160 --> 00:13:08,840
Yeah.
322
00:13:10,960 --> 00:13:13,560
So in any case yeah.
323
00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:16,040
So there was, and I will say one
324
00:13:16,040 --> 00:13:18,740
of the things that I also think about
325
00:13:18,740 --> 00:13:23,180
and associated with COVID was this sudden shift
326
00:13:23,180 --> 00:13:24,980
where everything shut down and we closed the
327
00:13:24,980 --> 00:13:25,360
office.
328
00:13:25,360 --> 00:13:27,460
We worked with people.
329
00:13:27,960 --> 00:13:32,740
Suddenly we're adopting virtual meetings and technology that
330
00:13:32,740 --> 00:13:34,940
previously we weren't inclined to do.
331
00:13:35,220 --> 00:13:36,560
Clients like coming in in person.
332
00:13:36,800 --> 00:13:38,860
But in the midst of this, it opened
333
00:13:38,860 --> 00:13:42,700
up the door of everyone worked remotely.
334
00:13:43,020 --> 00:13:46,540
Brian was commuting from Boston three days a
335
00:13:46,540 --> 00:13:48,320
week to the Cape.
336
00:13:48,500 --> 00:13:51,720
I'm sure he was happy that we adopted
337
00:13:51,720 --> 00:13:52,820
virtual stuff.
338
00:13:52,920 --> 00:13:54,520
He didn't have to come after that.
339
00:13:54,840 --> 00:13:56,640
All of a sudden everybody knew the word
340
00:13:56,640 --> 00:13:57,000
Zoom.
341
00:13:57,400 --> 00:13:58,840
Yeah, that's right.
342
00:13:59,100 --> 00:13:59,620
That's right.
343
00:14:02,040 --> 00:14:08,040
It has changed business and business travel meaningfully.
344
00:14:09,040 --> 00:14:12,520
I don't think conferences are ever back to
345
00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:19,160
what they were previously, but yeah, there's this
346
00:14:19,160 --> 00:14:25,100
notion that for a time life slowed down,
347
00:14:25,820 --> 00:14:29,820
which there are times I missed that aspect.
348
00:14:30,060 --> 00:14:31,880
I don't miss any of the other stuff,
349
00:14:31,980 --> 00:14:34,380
but I did like the fact that we
350
00:14:34,380 --> 00:14:36,420
worked from home and we had family nearby.
351
00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:39,420
We took walks and we were out, got
352
00:14:39,420 --> 00:14:42,740
fresh air a little bit with for just
353
00:14:42,740 --> 00:14:43,620
because we were crazy.
354
00:14:43,980 --> 00:14:45,700
You weren't driving anywhere.
355
00:14:45,880 --> 00:14:46,900
You weren't doing anything.
356
00:14:47,700 --> 00:14:51,960
But for working from home, I did the
357
00:14:51,960 --> 00:14:56,020
show from my dining room table with all
358
00:14:56,020 --> 00:14:56,620
our equipment.
359
00:14:57,660 --> 00:15:02,800
Anyway, I think there are some lessons to
360
00:15:02,800 --> 00:15:03,600
come out of that.
361
00:15:04,080 --> 00:15:06,500
Sometimes it's good to slow down a little
362
00:15:06,500 --> 00:15:10,120
bit because we're in such a rat race.
363
00:15:10,120 --> 00:15:10,320
Yeah.
364
00:15:11,680 --> 00:15:14,140
There are other lessons that we want to
365
00:15:14,140 --> 00:15:16,040
derive from that experience.
366
00:15:16,180 --> 00:15:17,640
Let's talk about those stuff.
367
00:15:17,720 --> 00:15:19,720
You started to go there with the financial
368
00:15:19,720 --> 00:15:21,840
story.
369
00:15:22,360 --> 00:15:23,840
Well, I think we can agree that COVID
370
00:15:23,840 --> 00:15:27,100
and the chaos and the uncertainty, I guess,
371
00:15:27,160 --> 00:15:29,900
that followed the recognition of what was happening
372
00:15:30,600 --> 00:15:33,560
was a driver of a market decline in
373
00:15:33,560 --> 00:15:36,920
April of 2020, shortly after the time period
374
00:15:36,920 --> 00:15:37,740
we're talking about.
375
00:15:38,120 --> 00:15:42,100
In effect, the government said, hey, it's not
376
00:15:42,100 --> 00:15:42,740
safe.
377
00:15:43,340 --> 00:15:44,220
Stay home.
378
00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:48,820
But if everyone's staying home, there are people
379
00:15:48,820 --> 00:15:51,340
who don't have paychecks coming in and companies
380
00:15:51,340 --> 00:15:54,040
were going to likely fail.
381
00:15:54,280 --> 00:15:58,040
So there was all kinds of measures, extraordinary
382
00:15:58,040 --> 00:16:03,740
measures to try to help individuals to have
383
00:16:03,740 --> 00:16:08,260
income and companies to be able to keep
384
00:16:08,260 --> 00:16:12,000
afloat and maybe keep up with some payroll
385
00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:13,540
and the like.
386
00:16:16,120 --> 00:16:18,760
There were loans.
387
00:16:19,560 --> 00:16:22,800
People had to pay back loans for employees.
388
00:16:23,180 --> 00:16:25,100
There was all types of government intervention.
389
00:16:25,440 --> 00:16:29,580
But the markets, the financial markets, were worried
390
00:16:29,580 --> 00:16:33,400
about the revenue of corporations and how this
391
00:16:33,400 --> 00:16:34,400
was going to play out.
392
00:16:34,480 --> 00:16:37,260
Things dropped starkly in the face of, hey,
393
00:16:37,340 --> 00:16:38,240
the world has stopped.
394
00:16:38,660 --> 00:16:39,460
The world has stopped.
395
00:16:39,820 --> 00:16:42,020
And will that mean profitability stops?
396
00:16:42,420 --> 00:16:45,180
And therefore, is there going to be any
397
00:16:45,180 --> 00:16:45,540
revenue?
398
00:16:45,860 --> 00:16:50,680
Well, I think in times like those, it's
399
00:16:50,680 --> 00:16:53,320
hard to keep your perspective on things.
400
00:16:53,780 --> 00:16:58,080
The idea that Brian would talk about the
401
00:16:58,080 --> 00:17:01,240
idea that earnings aren't a single year when
402
00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:02,280
it comes to stock value.
403
00:17:02,380 --> 00:17:04,740
It's not based on a single moment in
404
00:17:04,740 --> 00:17:05,000
time.
405
00:17:05,119 --> 00:17:07,800
It's based on projected over many years.
406
00:17:08,240 --> 00:17:09,040
How does this play out?
407
00:17:09,099 --> 00:17:10,800
But of course, you have the uncertainty of,
408
00:17:11,060 --> 00:17:11,740
well, what's changing?
409
00:17:11,839 --> 00:17:12,420
What does that mean?
410
00:17:12,520 --> 00:17:13,220
How will it play out?
411
00:17:13,540 --> 00:17:15,260
I think that's the key word there, Chris,
412
00:17:15,280 --> 00:17:16,040
is uncertainty.
413
00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:20,180
Corporations and markets adjust to things.
414
00:17:20,400 --> 00:17:22,280
And maybe we're going to talk about this.
415
00:17:22,359 --> 00:17:23,839
I'll just tease it now.
416
00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:24,500
Go for it.
417
00:17:24,520 --> 00:17:24,960
Let's do it.
418
00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:26,900
It's kind of uncertain in the market right
419
00:17:26,900 --> 00:17:27,180
now.
420
00:17:27,420 --> 00:17:30,420
The uncertainty isn't a pandemic.
421
00:17:30,600 --> 00:17:33,520
The uncertainty is economic and political.
422
00:17:34,080 --> 00:17:36,560
And to it, specifically, tariffs.
423
00:17:36,780 --> 00:17:40,840
The market isn't sure what's happening with tariffs.
424
00:17:40,980 --> 00:17:43,900
And it makes the market unstable and uncertain.
425
00:17:44,080 --> 00:17:47,040
And that usually means a downward trend, in
426
00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:50,240
my opinion, when the market and corporations are
427
00:17:50,240 --> 00:17:51,700
uncertain about how they're going to be able
428
00:17:51,700 --> 00:17:54,760
to do business or what the rules of
429
00:17:54,760 --> 00:17:55,560
doing business are.
430
00:17:55,680 --> 00:17:57,360
Taxes, in this case, tariffs.
431
00:17:58,480 --> 00:18:03,120
We tend to see a downward trend, especially
432
00:18:03,120 --> 00:18:07,140
the market had been good and is good
433
00:18:07,140 --> 00:18:08,680
now or was good.
434
00:18:09,700 --> 00:18:13,020
So there's some analogy between then and now,
435
00:18:13,080 --> 00:18:14,360
even though it's a different subject.
436
00:18:14,360 --> 00:18:19,220
When we came out of 2019, we were
437
00:18:19,220 --> 00:18:23,480
dealing with a great wind at our back,
438
00:18:23,780 --> 00:18:26,200
a solid year in the markets.
439
00:18:26,780 --> 00:18:29,440
And then suddenly you have this disruption.
440
00:18:30,340 --> 00:18:32,560
I think what you have to take away
441
00:18:32,560 --> 00:18:36,160
from that experience and perhaps the analogy in
442
00:18:36,160 --> 00:18:38,140
the midst of what's going on now is
443
00:18:39,220 --> 00:18:44,380
good investors are the ones that take advantage
444
00:18:44,380 --> 00:18:45,600
of opportunity.
445
00:18:46,680 --> 00:18:51,220
The impulse that people have oftentimes is to
446
00:18:51,220 --> 00:18:54,620
say, I'm going to get more defensive as
447
00:18:54,620 --> 00:18:56,380
a consequence of anxiety.
448
00:18:56,920 --> 00:19:01,120
And the best investors say, what opportunities is
449
00:19:01,120 --> 00:19:03,980
this creating for me to take advantage of
450
00:19:03,980 --> 00:19:05,500
as a long-term investor?
451
00:19:06,180 --> 00:19:08,400
And I think that's the mindset we need
452
00:19:08,400 --> 00:19:12,060
to be interpreting as investors.
453
00:19:12,620 --> 00:19:15,720
When things are feeling perhaps a bit excessive,
454
00:19:16,160 --> 00:19:19,280
we get a little more defensive, which is
455
00:19:19,280 --> 00:19:22,280
what our firm had done on the edges
456
00:19:22,280 --> 00:19:24,100
in 2019.
457
00:19:25,020 --> 00:19:27,800
So as it turned out, not anticipating the
458
00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:29,780
pandemic, but just feeling like things were a
459
00:19:29,780 --> 00:19:35,800
little bit overpriced, we were better positioned to
460
00:19:35,800 --> 00:19:40,040
not feel it as fully as some people
461
00:19:40,040 --> 00:19:40,560
might have.
462
00:19:41,380 --> 00:19:43,500
Similarly, I think when we look at going
463
00:19:43,500 --> 00:19:47,920
into this year, our team strategies for our
464
00:19:47,920 --> 00:19:51,150
clientele, the discretionary strategies we manage for our
465
00:19:51,150 --> 00:19:55,850
clientele, we've been recognizing that for those most
466
00:19:55,850 --> 00:20:00,230
conservative investors, well, there's a little bit of
467
00:20:00,230 --> 00:20:04,910
excess in the price of the market, the
468
00:20:04,910 --> 00:20:07,330
multiples that people were paying for certain parts
469
00:20:07,330 --> 00:20:07,830
of the market.
470
00:20:08,550 --> 00:20:10,270
So there was an opportunity to be a
471
00:20:10,270 --> 00:20:12,890
little bit more defensive, which we were.
472
00:20:13,130 --> 00:20:15,750
That's been good in the sense of what's
473
00:20:15,750 --> 00:20:16,990
going on around us.
474
00:20:17,410 --> 00:20:20,710
And what we need to think about, whether
475
00:20:20,710 --> 00:20:24,230
we're a moderate or aggressive investor or a
476
00:20:24,230 --> 00:20:28,750
conservative or preservation-minded investor, is in the
477
00:20:28,750 --> 00:20:31,670
midst of these changes, as markets become a
478
00:20:31,670 --> 00:20:38,950
little bit more volatile, valuations readjust, does that
479
00:20:38,950 --> 00:20:40,090
create opportunities?
480
00:20:40,610 --> 00:20:42,210
And I think that's one thing I will
481
00:20:42,210 --> 00:20:45,710
say to give Brian Regan some credit for
482
00:20:45,710 --> 00:20:46,230
our team.
483
00:20:46,950 --> 00:20:53,570
In the 2020 environment, he had great insights
484
00:20:53,570 --> 00:20:56,250
in the way he was thinking about things,
485
00:20:56,410 --> 00:20:59,390
which I was very appreciative at that time.
486
00:20:59,930 --> 00:21:03,810
It kept us in perspective of opportunities that
487
00:21:03,810 --> 00:21:06,790
were being created, whether it was in treasuries
488
00:21:06,790 --> 00:21:10,410
or in municipals or even high yield exposure,
489
00:21:10,810 --> 00:21:14,770
there was opportunity with less risk than maybe
490
00:21:14,770 --> 00:21:17,230
stock-like returns, but maybe not stock-like
491
00:21:17,230 --> 00:21:17,590
risk.
492
00:21:18,110 --> 00:21:21,090
Similarly, when it came to our stock exposure,
493
00:21:21,850 --> 00:21:25,090
there were certain sectors we wanted to reimagine
494
00:21:25,090 --> 00:21:27,650
how we wanted to be positioned in, given
495
00:21:27,650 --> 00:21:31,090
where there was greater disruption, there was greater
496
00:21:31,090 --> 00:21:31,690
opportunity.
497
00:21:32,250 --> 00:21:35,370
So these are things we need to kind
498
00:21:35,370 --> 00:21:40,390
of take to heart in challenging times, when
499
00:21:40,390 --> 00:21:45,090
the inclination, the temptation is to say, you
500
00:21:45,090 --> 00:21:47,290
know, arms in the air, run for the
501
00:21:47,290 --> 00:21:49,790
hills, you know, like we want to be
502
00:21:49,790 --> 00:21:55,410
inclined to increase our cash, you know, hey,
503
00:21:55,510 --> 00:21:56,330
let's do something.
504
00:21:56,330 --> 00:22:00,210
You know, that notion, don't just sit there,
505
00:22:00,450 --> 00:22:01,070
do something.
506
00:22:01,550 --> 00:22:03,530
We want to take the option and say,
507
00:22:03,650 --> 00:22:05,250
don't just do something, sit there.
508
00:22:05,830 --> 00:22:10,410
We've already, with our client's strategies, had the
509
00:22:10,410 --> 00:22:13,030
opportunity to be a little bit proactive on
510
00:22:13,030 --> 00:22:14,290
some of these considerations.
511
00:22:15,730 --> 00:22:18,510
And that doesn't mean there isn't disruption.
512
00:22:19,290 --> 00:22:21,410
When markets move, everybody feels it.
513
00:22:21,430 --> 00:22:23,170
If you have stock, you feel it.
514
00:22:23,710 --> 00:22:25,970
But, you know, to what extent?
515
00:22:26,450 --> 00:22:29,650
And does that create some room for opportunities
516
00:22:29,650 --> 00:22:33,390
to be benefited for, as we look longer
517
00:22:33,390 --> 00:22:34,310
term ahead?
518
00:22:34,850 --> 00:22:35,970
I don't know, what's that?
519
00:22:36,710 --> 00:22:39,210
This conversation reminds me of something that we
520
00:22:39,210 --> 00:22:40,610
talk about from time to time.
521
00:22:40,850 --> 00:22:44,150
It's probably 10 years old now, but the
522
00:22:44,150 --> 00:22:50,490
Vanguard study, who did an assessment of the
523
00:22:50,490 --> 00:22:53,570
value of working with a financial advisor who
524
00:22:53,570 --> 00:22:55,470
has your best interest at heart, and, you
525
00:22:55,470 --> 00:22:57,630
know, who's doing these things every day, is
526
00:22:57,630 --> 00:23:01,010
aware of history, aware of patterns, aware of
527
00:23:01,010 --> 00:23:03,130
the ups and downs, and, you know, is
528
00:23:03,130 --> 00:23:06,310
going to be less impacted by some of
529
00:23:06,310 --> 00:23:07,830
the emotional things that happen.
530
00:23:08,090 --> 00:23:10,990
Because we know that a majority of investors,
531
00:23:10,990 --> 00:23:13,630
this isn't just our opinion, this has been
532
00:23:13,630 --> 00:23:16,690
studied, the majority investors, when the stock market's
533
00:23:16,690 --> 00:23:19,530
roaring to record highs, say, get me some
534
00:23:19,530 --> 00:23:20,030
of that.
535
00:23:20,350 --> 00:23:20,990
I want in.
536
00:23:21,190 --> 00:23:21,910
I want in.
537
00:23:22,730 --> 00:23:24,650
And when the market is down with a
538
00:23:24,650 --> 00:23:26,690
correction or even in a bear market, people
539
00:23:26,690 --> 00:23:27,910
say, get me out of this.
540
00:23:27,990 --> 00:23:29,370
I don't want to lose more money.
541
00:23:30,770 --> 00:23:34,410
And what this Vanguard study showed is that
542
00:23:34,410 --> 00:23:36,330
when you work with an advisor who has
543
00:23:36,330 --> 00:23:41,290
the tolerance, who has the experience, who has
544
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the wisdom that you've been describing, Chris, back
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in 2020, or today, even,
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Welcome to Something More with Chris Boyd.
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Chris Boyd is a Certified Financial Planner Practitioner
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and Senior Vice President and Financial Advisor at
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Wealth Enhancement Group, one of the nation's largest
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registered investment advisors.
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We call it Something More because we'd like
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to talk not only about those important dollar
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and cents issues, but also the quality of
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life issues that make the money matters matter.
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Here he is, your fulfillment facilitator, your partner
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in prosperity, advising clients on Cape Cod and
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across the country.
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Here's your host, Jay Christopher Boyd.
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Thanks for being with us for the Something
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More with Chris Boyd show.
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You know, I was thinking it's been 17,
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almost 18 years that we've been doing this
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show.
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We've seen a lot of market conditions along
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the way when we started out.
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It was even before the problems of the
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financial crisis.
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We helped our audience kind of navigate some
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of the challenges going through that.
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But more recently, by the way, everybody, I'm
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joined with Jeff Perry and Russ Ball of
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the AMR team from Wealth Enhancement Group.
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Guys, I was thinking it's just about five
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years since the pandemic hit.
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And I thought maybe we just take a
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moment to do a little bit of retrospective,
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but also maybe to try to take a
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moment to derive some lessons from extreme experiences
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that come along in the markets.
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I know we have a lot of clients
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and listeners who are probably a little bit
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anxious as markets have been quite volatile in
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the last several weeks.
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And maybe there's some opportunities to draw some
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lessons from other experiences as well.
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Let me just start by saying, I'd be
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interested in hearing from you guys where you
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were.
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What was that song, When the World Stopped
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Turning?
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Essentially, I was thinking about how Kristen and
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I were out with friends on the weekend
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where we were at a show in Boston
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with hundreds of our closest...
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No, I'm kidding.
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Hundreds of people in this theater in Boston
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at one minute and out at restaurants and
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things.
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And within just a few days, everything started
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closing down.
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The athletics, professional teams, the basketball...
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I remember the basketball teams particularly, where it
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was like, they're not having games anymore.
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I think there were some...
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There was a basketball player who...
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I forget which one that had COVID was
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still...
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And then they were like, oh, isolation.
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And then all this kind of thing.
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It was like, then the whole team got
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it, this kind of thing.
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So they said, all right, no one's gonna...
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They weren't gonna play.
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And then New York City seemed like the
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hotbed of...
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In the United States, there was a couple
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of boats off the coast that had some
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people that they were quarantined.
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They weren't able to land and then dock
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or whatever.
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And then it was this thing, we're not
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gonna let it into our country kind of
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mindset.
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And long and behold, I'm sure it was
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already here.
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We just didn't know it.
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My son lived in New York City at
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the time.
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And we said, it sounds like things are
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gonna shut down soon.
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Why don't I come and get you?
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We don't know how long it's gonna be.
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Why don't you hang out here on the
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Cape instead of being in the city with
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who knows what going on?
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And maybe it'd be safer kind of mindset.
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So I remember driving down to New York
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on highways that were just desolate.
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Nobody was out.
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And the world had stopped at this point.
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It was crazy.
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And the easiest drive I ever had going
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to and from New York City.
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But in any case, tell me what you
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guys remember where you were.
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Who wants to go first?
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Jeff, I remember it very well because two
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important things were happening in my world on
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March 13th, five years to the day.
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We were selling our house that we had
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for many years in downtown Sandwich.
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So we had a closing that day.
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And I walked into Doug Cabral's office.
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Doug's been a guest on the show because
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he's handling the closing for the buyers.
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And that morning was the morning, as you
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indicated, Chris, that things started to get serious.
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We were hearing more substantial news and possible
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shutdown.
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So we were all talking like, should we
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be using different pens?
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Should we be in the same room?
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And it was just kind of joking conversation
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at the moment.
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An eerie awareness though, right?
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That's right.
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Something had changed that day for me.
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That's when I noticed it at that closing.
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And then, so we had the closing.
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And I was leaving the closing, calling my
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son, because I had just heard we had
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tickets to the Celtics game that night.
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Another thing you mentioned.
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I had just heard that our game was
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the first game that was canceled.
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So I was calling him to tell him.
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And so, yeah, it seems like a lot
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longer than five years ago.
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That's amazing, right?
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Yeah.
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I remember it was funny.
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We had a client in maybe January of
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that year who had said, there's this crazy
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thing going on in China and I'm really
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nervous.
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I want to pull everything out.
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And I was like, are you sure?
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That seems kind of crazy.
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Maybe that's extreme.
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I didn't say crazy, of course.
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But I said, oh, that's extreme.
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What are the odds?
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This kind of thing.
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So she did, she pulled everything out.
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Of course, genius, right?
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On the other hand- Did she put
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it back?
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She never put it back in.
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She missed out on a lot anyway.
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We'll come back and talk about markets.
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Yeah.
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That's a good subject to talk about.
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But it was at this point that you're
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talking about, maybe just before this, that as
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a team, we started talking about, well, what
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if this really does evolve into something that
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there seems to be this growing concern around?
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How should we be navigating that?
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And so I think one of the things
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we want to talk about in a few
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minutes is just how did we, what might
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we derive from this?
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Got some lessons.
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But I want to hear about Russ.
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Russ, you lived in New York City, didn't
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you?
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Yeah.
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I was in New York City at the
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time.
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And I remember in probably about December of
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the previous year, I was reading about COVID.
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It was way at the bottom of the
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news app.
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It was like, oh, by the way, there's
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a virus in China.
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And I remember reading it and thinking, oh,
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that's, I had an eerie feeling about it.
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And I started following it from that point.
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And I was up in Spain.
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I remember it was like, it was kind
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of moving around the world a little bit.
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Exactly.
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And I think it was around that time,
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probably like January or maybe February, I started
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buying, I was an early adopter of masks
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on the subway.
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And I was, you know, people were looking
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at me like I was crazy.
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I was trying to convince my girlfriend to
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wear a mask.
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Because it was only like, at that time,
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you only saw people from Asia in airports,
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wearing masks, I think, prior to this.
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It was unusual.
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But they had bird flu.
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And they had been through some of these
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kind of things before in other parts of
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the world where they had grown accustomed maybe
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to masks and so forth.
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Right.
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Right.
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And so I was definitely an outlier in
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the subway.
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My girlfriend was trying to get as far
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away from me as she could.
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And you hadn't gotten it until just recently.
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Exactly.
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Exactly.
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I was extremely cautious.
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So in any case, I was following what
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was going on.
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And I was watching pretty closely when you
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start hearing about these cases in the city,
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like doubling, tripling overnight.
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And similar to Jeff, I was out at
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a show at Radio City.
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I think it was like a Thursday night.
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And, you know, pretty big crowd in the
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audience.
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No one really seemed to miss the show
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because of all this stuff that was going
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on.
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But next day, they shut down Broadway.
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And I was like, OK, that's a pretty
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good sign that things are escalating here.
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So I sounded the alarm bells for my
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family.
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And I was like, let's all get in
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the car.
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Let's get out of the city.
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Let's start there.
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My dad always had this thing about, you
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know, getting trapped in Manhattan if there was
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ever any kind of emergency, if they shut
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the bridges down.
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So I was like, let's get let's get
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in New Jersey.
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Went to my grandma's house in Jersey and
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hunkered down with her for about a week.
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As things started escalating, you start hearing these
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horror stories in New York City that, you
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know, the hospitals were getting overrun pretty quickly.
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There were these crazy stories about at the
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time.
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I was obsessed with the news and the
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New York Times app page that I was
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on the app, but they have on their
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website some details about tracking COVID in various
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locations by counties.
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You know, I became obsessed with that stuff
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because there were these horror stories about people
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who just would die these horrible deaths with
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they couldn't breathe, you know, with the ventilators
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and all this.
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And remember how ventilators were at a premium
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and they're just there were not enough of
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them and the hospitals were being overrun.
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And then it was like, well, should you
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go?
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Should you stay home?
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It's just unclear what to do.
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And I remember in those early days with
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makeshift masks, we didn't have the masks that
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you were an early adopter for.
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So we were getting cloth masks.
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It was just something, you know, and then
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going to the grocery stores, wiping down every
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box that came home.
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It was like, it was just segregating packages.
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00:11:03,420 --> 00:11:06,720
And yeah, the most memorable thing that followed
276
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was my mom was in an assisted living
277
00:11:09,340 --> 00:11:11,200
and I went to visit her one day
278
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and couldn't get in doors are locked and
279
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no visitors.
280
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And my mom lived in a continuing care
281
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retirement, independent living, and they too were isolated
282
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because of course it was the elderly who
283
00:11:29,380 --> 00:11:34,740
were the most susceptible to having other issues
284
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that that became the most prone to being
285
00:11:39,500 --> 00:11:41,580
hit hardest by COVID.
286
00:11:42,420 --> 00:11:44,660
You know, I remember thinking to, you know,
287
00:11:44,700 --> 00:11:46,320
when you saw those, you were talking about
288
00:11:46,320 --> 00:11:49,180
the hospitals being overrun and then they had
289
00:11:49,180 --> 00:11:53,740
these refrigerated trucks with just the huge number
290
00:11:53,740 --> 00:11:57,260
of deaths and they didn't have ability to
291
00:11:57,260 --> 00:11:58,120
deal with it all.
292
00:11:58,120 --> 00:12:00,600
It was just, and then he couldn't have
293
00:12:00,600 --> 00:12:00,960
a funeral.
294
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I'm sure you all knew people who died
295
00:12:05,480 --> 00:12:06,060
from COVID.
296
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My mom died with COVID.
297
00:12:09,300 --> 00:12:11,800
She had so many other things, but we
298
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were not able to have a public funeral.
299
00:12:14,240 --> 00:12:17,480
We just had a family gathering, you know,
300
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at the cemetery and so much was changing.
301
00:12:21,300 --> 00:12:25,000
And along with all that, you know, nervousness
302
00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:28,020
and concern in the world, the market started
303
00:12:28,020 --> 00:12:28,380
to.
304
00:12:28,840 --> 00:12:29,160
Yeah.
305
00:12:29,360 --> 00:12:31,940
I remember my aunt Rita died in that
306
00:12:31,940 --> 00:12:32,360
time.
307
00:12:33,020 --> 00:12:38,000
My wife's cousin who was, you know, similar
308
00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:38,840
in age died.
309
00:12:39,600 --> 00:12:43,320
You know, so definitely I think everybody at
310
00:12:43,320 --> 00:12:46,840
some point had some connection to loss related
311
00:12:46,840 --> 00:12:47,460
to COVID.
312
00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:50,020
Yeah.
313
00:12:50,200 --> 00:12:52,380
No family, unfortunately, but there were a couple
314
00:12:52,380 --> 00:12:53,660
of people in our building that we were
315
00:12:53,660 --> 00:12:58,080
close to that passed away prior to the
316
00:12:58,080 --> 00:13:00,340
realization of what was even going on.
317
00:13:00,460 --> 00:13:02,000
It was like some kind of crazy pneumonia.
318
00:13:02,460 --> 00:13:04,320
I think we had a client who died
319
00:13:04,320 --> 00:13:05,300
of that.
320
00:13:05,620 --> 00:13:07,160
I really wonder if it was.
321
00:13:08,160 --> 00:13:08,840
Yeah.
322
00:13:10,960 --> 00:13:13,560
So in any case yeah.
323
00:13:13,800 --> 00:13:16,040
So there was, and I will say one
324
00:13:16,040 --> 00:13:18,740
of the things that I also think about
325
00:13:18,740 --> 00:13:23,180
and associated with COVID was this sudden shift
326
00:13:23,180 --> 00:13:24,980
where everything shut down and we closed the
327
00:13:24,980 --> 00:13:25,360
office.
328
00:13:25,360 --> 00:13:27,460
We worked with people.
329
00:13:27,960 --> 00:13:32,740
Suddenly we're adopting virtual meetings and technology that
330
00:13:32,740 --> 00:13:34,940
previously we weren't inclined to do.
331
00:13:35,220 --> 00:13:36,560
Clients like coming in in person.
332
00:13:36,800 --> 00:13:38,860
But in the midst of this, it opened
333
00:13:38,860 --> 00:13:42,700
up the door of everyone worked remotely.
334
00:13:43,020 --> 00:13:46,540
Brian was commuting from Boston three days a
335
00:13:46,540 --> 00:13:48,320
week to the Cape.
336
00:13:48,500 --> 00:13:51,720
I'm sure he was happy that we adopted
337
00:13:51,720 --> 00:13:52,820
virtual stuff.
338
00:13:52,920 --> 00:13:54,520
He didn't have to come after that.
339
00:13:54,840 --> 00:13:56,640
All of a sudden everybody knew the word
340
00:13:56,640 --> 00:13:57,000
Zoom.
341
00:13:57,400 --> 00:13:58,840
Yeah, that's right.
342
00:13:59,100 --> 00:13:59,620
That's right.
343
00:14:02,040 --> 00:14:08,040
It has changed business and business travel meaningfully.
344
00:14:09,040 --> 00:14:12,520
I don't think conferences are ever back to
345
00:14:12,520 --> 00:14:19,160
what they were previously, but yeah, there's this
346
00:14:19,160 --> 00:14:25,100
notion that for a time life slowed down,
347
00:14:25,820 --> 00:14:29,820
which there are times I missed that aspect.
348
00:14:30,060 --> 00:14:31,880
I don't miss any of the other stuff,
349
00:14:31,980 --> 00:14:34,380
but I did like the fact that we
350
00:14:34,380 --> 00:14:36,420
worked from home and we had family nearby.
351
00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:39,420
We took walks and we were out, got
352
00:14:39,420 --> 00:14:42,740
fresh air a little bit with for just
353
00:14:42,740 --> 00:14:43,620
because we were crazy.
354
00:14:43,980 --> 00:14:45,700
You weren't driving anywhere.
355
00:14:45,880 --> 00:14:46,900
You weren't doing anything.
356
00:14:47,700 --> 00:14:51,960
But for working from home, I did the
357
00:14:51,960 --> 00:14:56,020
show from my dining room table with all
358
00:14:56,020 --> 00:14:56,620
our equipment.
359
00:14:57,660 --> 00:15:02,800
Anyway, I think there are some lessons to
360
00:15:02,800 --> 00:15:03,600
come out of that.
361
00:15:04,080 --> 00:15:06,500
Sometimes it's good to slow down a little
362
00:15:06,500 --> 00:15:10,120
bit because we're in such a rat race.
363
00:15:10,120 --> 00:15:10,320
Yeah.
364
00:15:11,680 --> 00:15:14,140
There are other lessons that we want to
365
00:15:14,140 --> 00:15:16,040
derive from that experience.
366
00:15:16,180 --> 00:15:17,640
Let's talk about those stuff.
367
00:15:17,720 --> 00:15:19,720
You started to go there with the financial
368
00:15:19,720 --> 00:15:21,840
story.
369
00:15:22,360 --> 00:15:23,840
Well, I think we can agree that COVID
370
00:15:23,840 --> 00:15:27,100
and the chaos and the uncertainty, I guess,
371
00:15:27,160 --> 00:15:29,900
that followed the recognition of what was happening
372
00:15:30,600 --> 00:15:33,560
was a driver of a market decline in
373
00:15:33,560 --> 00:15:36,920
April of 2020, shortly after the time period
374
00:15:36,920 --> 00:15:37,740
we're talking about.
375
00:15:38,120 --> 00:15:42,100
In effect, the government said, hey, it's not
376
00:15:42,100 --> 00:15:42,740
safe.
377
00:15:43,340 --> 00:15:44,220
Stay home.
378
00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:48,820
But if everyone's staying home, there are people
379
00:15:48,820 --> 00:15:51,340
who don't have paychecks coming in and companies
380
00:15:51,340 --> 00:15:54,040
were going to likely fail.
381
00:15:54,280 --> 00:15:58,040
So there was all kinds of measures, extraordinary
382
00:15:58,040 --> 00:16:03,740
measures to try to help individuals to have
383
00:16:03,740 --> 00:16:08,260
income and companies to be able to keep
384
00:16:08,260 --> 00:16:12,000
afloat and maybe keep up with some payroll
385
00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:13,540
and the like.
386
00:16:16,120 --> 00:16:18,760
There were loans.
387
00:16:19,560 --> 00:16:22,800
People had to pay back loans for employees.
388
00:16:23,180 --> 00:16:25,100
There was all types of government intervention.
389
00:16:25,440 --> 00:16:29,580
But the markets, the financial markets, were worried
390
00:16:29,580 --> 00:16:33,400
about the revenue of corporations and how this
391
00:16:33,400 --> 00:16:34,400
was going to play out.
392
00:16:34,480 --> 00:16:37,260
Things dropped starkly in the face of, hey,
393
00:16:37,340 --> 00:16:38,240
the world has stopped.
394
00:16:38,660 --> 00:16:39,460
The world has stopped.
395
00:16:39,820 --> 00:16:42,020
And will that mean profitability stops?
396
00:16:42,420 --> 00:16:45,180
And therefore, is there going to be any
397
00:16:45,180 --> 00:16:45,540
revenue?
398
00:16:45,860 --> 00:16:50,680
Well, I think in times like those, it's
399
00:16:50,680 --> 00:16:53,320
hard to keep your perspective on things.
400
00:16:53,780 --> 00:16:58,080
The idea that Brian would talk about the
401
00:16:58,080 --> 00:17:01,240
idea that earnings aren't a single year when
402
00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:02,280
it comes to stock value.
403
00:17:02,380 --> 00:17:04,740
It's not based on a single moment in
404
00:17:04,740 --> 00:17:05,000
time.
405
00:17:05,119 --> 00:17:07,800
It's based on projected over many years.
406
00:17:08,240 --> 00:17:09,040
How does this play out?
407
00:17:09,099 --> 00:17:10,800
But of course, you have the uncertainty of,
408
00:17:11,060 --> 00:17:11,740
well, what's changing?
409
00:17:11,839 --> 00:17:12,420
What does that mean?
410
00:17:12,520 --> 00:17:13,220
How will it play out?
411
00:17:13,540 --> 00:17:15,260
I think that's the key word there, Chris,
412
00:17:15,280 --> 00:17:16,040
is uncertainty.
413
00:17:16,960 --> 00:17:20,180
Corporations and markets adjust to things.
414
00:17:20,400 --> 00:17:22,280
And maybe we're going to talk about this.
415
00:17:22,359 --> 00:17:23,839
I'll just tease it now.
416
00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:24,500
Go for it.
417
00:17:24,520 --> 00:17:24,960
Let's do it.
418
00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:26,900
It's kind of uncertain in the market right
419
00:17:26,900 --> 00:17:27,180
now.
420
00:17:27,420 --> 00:17:30,420
The uncertainty isn't a pandemic.
421
00:17:30,600 --> 00:17:33,520
The uncertainty is economic and political.
422
00:17:34,080 --> 00:17:36,560
And to it, specifically, tariffs.
423
00:17:36,780 --> 00:17:40,840
The market isn't sure what's happening with tariffs.
424
00:17:40,980 --> 00:17:43,900
And it makes the market unstable and uncertain.
425
00:17:44,080 --> 00:17:47,040
And that usually means a downward trend, in
426
00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:50,240
my opinion, when the market and corporations are
427
00:17:50,240 --> 00:17:51,700
uncertain about how they're going to be able
428
00:17:51,700 --> 00:17:54,760
to do business or what the rules of
429
00:17:54,760 --> 00:17:55,560
doing business are.
430
00:17:55,680 --> 00:17:57,360
Taxes, in this case, tariffs.
431
00:17:58,480 --> 00:18:03,120
We tend to see a downward trend, especially
432
00:18:03,120 --> 00:18:07,140
the market had been good and is good
433
00:18:07,140 --> 00:18:08,680
now or was good.
434
00:18:09,700 --> 00:18:13,020
So there's some analogy between then and now,
435
00:18:13,080 --> 00:18:14,360
even though it's a different subject.
436
00:18:14,360 --> 00:18:19,220
When we came out of 2019, we were
437
00:18:19,220 --> 00:18:23,480
dealing with a great wind at our back,
438
00:18:23,780 --> 00:18:26,200
a solid year in the markets.
439
00:18:26,780 --> 00:18:29,440
And then suddenly you have this disruption.
440
00:18:30,340 --> 00:18:32,560
I think what you have to take away
441
00:18:32,560 --> 00:18:36,160
from that experience and perhaps the analogy in
442
00:18:36,160 --> 00:18:38,140
the midst of what's going on now is
443
00:18:39,220 --> 00:18:44,380
good investors are the ones that take advantage
444
00:18:44,380 --> 00:18:45,600
of opportunity.
445
00:18:46,680 --> 00:18:51,220
The impulse that people have oftentimes is to
446
00:18:51,220 --> 00:18:54,620
say, I'm going to get more defensive as
447
00:18:54,620 --> 00:18:56,380
a consequence of anxiety.
448
00:18:56,920 --> 00:19:01,120
And the best investors say, what opportunities is
449
00:19:01,120 --> 00:19:03,980
this creating for me to take advantage of
450
00:19:03,980 --> 00:19:05,500
as a long-term investor?
451
00:19:06,180 --> 00:19:08,400
And I think that's the mindset we need
452
00:19:08,400 --> 00:19:12,060
to be interpreting as investors.
453
00:19:12,620 --> 00:19:15,720
When things are feeling perhaps a bit excessive,
454
00:19:16,160 --> 00:19:19,280
we get a little more defensive, which is
455
00:19:19,280 --> 00:19:22,280
what our firm had done on the edges
456
00:19:22,280 --> 00:19:24,100
in 2019.
457
00:19:25,020 --> 00:19:27,800
So as it turned out, not anticipating the
458
00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:29,780
pandemic, but just feeling like things were a
459
00:19:29,780 --> 00:19:35,800
little bit overpriced, we were better positioned to
460
00:19:35,800 --> 00:19:40,040
not feel it as fully as some people
461
00:19:40,040 --> 00:19:40,560
might have.
462
00:19:41,380 --> 00:19:43,500
Similarly, I think when we look at going
463
00:19:43,500 --> 00:19:47,920
into this year, our team strategies for our
464
00:19:47,920 --> 00:19:51,150
clientele, the discretionary strategies we manage for our
465
00:19:51,150 --> 00:19:55,850
clientele, we've been recognizing that for those most
466
00:19:55,850 --> 00:20:00,230
conservative investors, well, there's a little bit of
467
00:20:00,230 --> 00:20:04,910
excess in the price of the market, the
468
00:20:04,910 --> 00:20:07,330
multiples that people were paying for certain parts
469
00:20:07,330 --> 00:20:07,830
of the market.
470
00:20:08,550 --> 00:20:10,270
So there was an opportunity to be a
471
00:20:10,270 --> 00:20:12,890
little bit more defensive, which we were.
472
00:20:13,130 --> 00:20:15,750
That's been good in the sense of what's
473
00:20:15,750 --> 00:20:16,990
going on around us.
474
00:20:17,410 --> 00:20:20,710
And what we need to think about, whether
475
00:20:20,710 --> 00:20:24,230
we're a moderate or aggressive investor or a
476
00:20:24,230 --> 00:20:28,750
conservative or preservation-minded investor, is in the
477
00:20:28,750 --> 00:20:31,670
midst of these changes, as markets become a
478
00:20:31,670 --> 00:20:38,950
little bit more volatile, valuations readjust, does that
479
00:20:38,950 --> 00:20:40,090
create opportunities?
480
00:20:40,610 --> 00:20:42,210
And I think that's one thing I will
481
00:20:42,210 --> 00:20:45,710
say to give Brian Regan some credit for
482
00:20:45,710 --> 00:20:46,230
our team.
483
00:20:46,950 --> 00:20:53,570
In the 2020 environment, he had great insights
484
00:20:53,570 --> 00:20:56,250
in the way he was thinking about things,
485
00:20:56,410 --> 00:20:59,390
which I was very appreciative at that time.
486
00:20:59,930 --> 00:21:03,810
It kept us in perspective of opportunities that
487
00:21:03,810 --> 00:21:06,790
were being created, whether it was in treasuries
488
00:21:06,790 --> 00:21:10,410
or in municipals or even high yield exposure,
489
00:21:10,810 --> 00:21:14,770
there was opportunity with less risk than maybe
490
00:21:14,770 --> 00:21:17,230
stock-like returns, but maybe not stock-like
491
00:21:17,230 --> 00:21:17,590
risk.
492
00:21:18,110 --> 00:21:21,090
Similarly, when it came to our stock exposure,
493
00:21:21,850 --> 00:21:25,090
there were certain sectors we wanted to reimagine
494
00:21:25,090 --> 00:21:27,650
how we wanted to be positioned in, given
495
00:21:27,650 --> 00:21:31,090
where there was greater disruption, there was greater
496
00:21:31,090 --> 00:21:31,690
opportunity.
497
00:21:32,250 --> 00:21:35,370
So these are things we need to kind
498
00:21:35,370 --> 00:21:40,390
of take to heart in challenging times, when
499
00:21:40,390 --> 00:21:45,090
the inclination, the temptation is to say, you
500
00:21:45,090 --> 00:21:47,290
know, arms in the air, run for the
501
00:21:47,290 --> 00:21:49,790
hills, you know, like we want to be
502
00:21:49,790 --> 00:21:55,410
inclined to increase our cash, you know, hey,
503
00:21:55,510 --> 00:21:56,330
let's do something.
504
00:21:56,330 --> 00:22:00,210
You know, that notion, don't just sit there,
505
00:22:00,450 --> 00:22:01,070
do something.
506
00:22:01,550 --> 00:22:03,530
We want to take the option and say,
507
00:22:03,650 --> 00:22:05,250
don't just do something, sit there.
508
00:22:05,830 --> 00:22:10,410
We've already, with our client's strategies, had the
509
00:22:10,410 --> 00:22:13,030
opportunity to be a little bit proactive on
510
00:22:13,030 --> 00:22:14,290
some of these considerations.
511
00:22:15,730 --> 00:22:18,510
And that doesn't mean there isn't disruption.
512
00:22:19,290 --> 00:22:21,410
When markets move, everybody feels it.
513
00:22:21,430 --> 00:22:23,170
If you have stock, you feel it.
514
00:22:23,710 --> 00:22:25,970
But, you know, to what extent?
515
00:22:26,450 --> 00:22:29,650
And does that create some room for opportunities
516
00:22:29,650 --> 00:22:33,390
to be benefited for, as we look longer
517
00:22:33,390 --> 00:22:34,310
term ahead?
518
00:22:34,850 --> 00:22:35,970
I don't know, what's that?
519
00:22:36,710 --> 00:22:39,210
This conversation reminds me of something that we
520
00:22:39,210 --> 00:22:40,610
talk about from time to time.
521
00:22:40,850 --> 00:22:44,150
It's probably 10 years old now, but the
522
00:22:44,150 --> 00:22:50,490
Vanguard study, who did an assessment of the
523
00:22:50,490 --> 00:22:53,570
value of working with a financial advisor who
524
00:22:53,570 --> 00:22:55,470
has your best interest at heart, and, you
525
00:22:55,470 --> 00:22:57,630
know, who's doing these things every day, is
526
00:22:57,630 --> 00:23:01,010
aware of history, aware of patterns, aware of
527
00:23:01,010 --> 00:23:03,130
the ups and downs, and, you know, is
528
00:23:03,130 --> 00:23:06,310
going to be less impacted by some of
529
00:23:06,310 --> 00:23:07,830
the emotional things that happen.
530
00:23:08,090 --> 00:23:10,990
Because we know that a majority of investors,
531
00:23:10,990 --> 00:23:13,630
this isn't just our opinion, this has been
532
00:23:13,630 --> 00:23:16,690
studied, the majority investors, when the stock market's
533
00:23:16,690 --> 00:23:19,530
roaring to record highs, say, get me some
534
00:23:19,530 --> 00:23:20,030
of that.
535
00:23:20,350 --> 00:23:20,990
I want in.
536
00:23:21,190 --> 00:23:21,910
I want in.
537
00:23:22,730 --> 00:23:24,650
And when the market is down with a
538
00:23:24,650 --> 00:23:26,690
correction or even in a bear market, people
539
00:23:26,690 --> 00:23:27,910
say, get me out of this.
540
00:23:27,990 --> 00:23:29,370
I don't want to lose more money.
541
00:23:30,770 --> 00:23:34,410
And what this Vanguard study showed is that
542
00:23:34,410 --> 00:23:36,330
when you work with an advisor who has
543
00:23:36,330 --> 00:23:41,290
the tolerance, who has the experience, who has
544
00:23:41,290 --> 00:23:44,650
the wisdom that you've been describing, Chris, back
545
00:23:44,650 --> 00:23:46,410
in 2020, or today, even,
