October 18, 2021

Dear Friends:

Never Grow Old

Tom Brady is a 42 year-old professional football player.   And he isn’t just on the team, he is the leader of the team, a Super Bowl Champion, and possibly as good now as he ever was at 22 or 32.  Have you ever seen his football mugshots over time?  Good Lord Bro looks like he is younger than he did in his 20s!  He applies hard work and preparation as the ages-old strategy for success.  But he also keeps growing, adapting to the game while at the same time utilizing his vast experience to enable unrivaled success.  For example, when he came into the league 20 years ago successful teams needed a great running back.  Now you just need a solid role player running back and can have a wildly successful team.   Rules have changed tremendously and Tom Brady keeps adapting.  In numerous interviews he credits being “pliable” both mentally and physically as secrets to his success as well as letting go of negative emotions.  So how might this be applied to financial planning and investing success?

There are some tried and true strategies for financial and wealth management success.   The first is Preparation – we know there will be economic crisis and market pullbacks and so we expect them and plan for them.  Rebalancing portfolios to out of favor asset classes with long-term track records are an example of this (which worked well during the covid pandemic).    Diligence and hard work – investing consistently in bad times and good is hard work sometimes, but doing it consistently pays off.   Last year, rotating to small cap stocks paid off as well as short-duration high yield bonds and bank loans that pay more as interest rates rise.

Pliability – we have new investment vehicles to accomplish our goals whether that be ETFs or structured notes.   10 years ago these were used sparingly across the investment management sphere, and now the tax benefits of ETFs and the yield and lower volatility of structured notes is driving explosive growth.  Nothing wrong with traditional mutual funds, however there are other tools that have emerged and will emerge to help us help you grow your wealth.  Financial planning tools continue to evolve to get us to the ultimate goal of full integration of your money with your life goals.

The final secret to Tom’s success?  He Perseveres.  He believes he can grow, adapt, and believes he can still be successful by doing so.

Market Update: 

So far 2021 has been a great year for diversified portfolio with exposure to both small and value companies with large value and small value returning x% and X% vs. the S&P500.  Int’l and Emerging:______

Year End Tax Planning:

The end of the year is quickly approaching so that means any Roth Conversions, Individual 401K contributions, QCDs/RMDS have to be done before year end.  Let us know if we aren’t already scheduled to discuss year-end strategies for tax savings.  Also, there is a lot of potential legislation at the Federal level that would impact tax planning for 2021 and beyond.  Although this is still in flux, we believe that any legislation will only make having tax protected funds more attractive and strategic for financial success.

Regards,

Mitch Anderson                                           Destin Tompkins