Dear Survivor,
Your Survival Guy was having a typical, non-typical call with a client yesterday. It was typical because we talk regularly, and non-typical because of what he wanted to tell me. “You know, I have two people in my life I consider to be close friends who’ve I’ve never met. You’re number one.”
I laughed, “I’d like to change that someday,” I said. “The never have met part, I mean. Thank you.”
Then he told me there were two things that moved him years ago to become a client. One was that he decided to focus on his practice and not invest on his own, especially with the company retirement plan. Two, was that he wanted to prepare for retirement with the understanding that he may need enough money to be able to afford in home care. Unfortunately, that time has come.
“It has not only saved her life,” he said, “It’s saving me too because I could not do this alone.”
There was silence.
“It comes down to trust,” he said. “I believe in what you’re writing. I don’t have the discipline to do this on my own, especially with all the garbage that’s out there. I’ve never had a problem with getting rich slowly—you know the rule of 72.”
“I hear you,” I said.
What prompted this unexpected conversation? It was just a random message he sent me of a picture he took from his cabin after a 20-fish morning.
Unexpected conversations are always the best kind. They’ll take you to places you didn’t know you needed to go. Life moves fast. Money doesn’t have to. Slow and steady wins the race.
NYC, Crypto, ESG, the Haves and the Have-Yachts
Do you feel like you’re sipping from a firehose? Well, the next big thing coming for you is private equity as big players head for the exits. Isn’t that nice?
Americans’ 401(k)s will be stuffed with this crap as BlackRock and others lead the charge. You really can’t make it up. Remember how ESG was the next best thing? And guess what—now that the tides have changed, BlackRock is opening a fund dedicated to investing in Texas. Yes, that’s oil and gas-rich Texas. What kind of message does that send to clients stuck in ESG?
Remember, at the end of the day, the game is about gathering money. Your money. It’s why my father-in-law, Richard C. Young, would write to you about how investment products are aggressively sold to the individual investor. The individual doesn’t want to hassle with research.
It’s why variable annuities, ESG crap, and private equity hogs are perfect examples of big financial firms sending out armies of salesmen to prey on the trust of Mom and Pop. No, thank you. It’s why, first and foremost, I want you to work with a fiduciary. Period.
When you look at the lay of the land today, it is not an easy time to “live the American Dream” when your paycheck or dividend check funds it all.
Not to be too obvious, but the New York City Democratic primary for mayor is an outright socialist movement. And their nominee may even run for president. Pick up The Boston Globe and you can’t believe what you’re reading. Simply stated, you’re seeing big blue blob cities turn against the successful.
News flash to the editors: Money will travel to where it’s respected. That’s not hard. What will be hard is when the government runs New York City grocery stores that are ransacked every day of the week. It’s just a matter of who pays. The Feds?
How about interest rates? I’m all in for keeping the North Star at a reasonable level. I’m in no rush to reduce rates, seeing how that will further inflate illiquid assets that have no right being described as “assets.” Have we not learned anything from zero percent interest rates that penalized the saving class for a generation for the private equity pigs?
How about gold? I view it as an insurance policy for your portfolio and nothing more. I do not speculate in gold. I do own plenty of it, and if it goes down, that’s usually a good sign for other assets.
How about bitcoin? Not buying it. It trades more like a spec stock, not a currency. I do like the stablecoin concept. We’ll see how that plays out, though. It’s early, but that’s what I see as the benefit of cryptocurrency. Stable, decentralized, affordable transactions. I’m not giving up my American Express card quite yet, though.
We live in a world where Jeff Bezos’s wedding is big news. When owning a yacht is the only way to separate the rich from the really rich, it becomes a battle between the haves and the have-yachts. Get ready for the revolts to continue. Sounds a bit like ancient Rome. How did that end?
Focus on your income, don’t reach for yield, live within your means. Simple to say. Hard to do.
Take Care of Your Money, and Yourself
We’re just over halfway through the year, and tariffs or no tariffs, it’s been a good start. Does that mean we’re in for a fall? Not my concern.
My concern is helping you participate in the good times and to help you survive the bad ones. Bad times haven’t been as regular lately, but when they hit, they can be rough. Look at the deadliest markets this century below, and you get a reminder of what can happen when things go south.
I want you to think about what makes you successful as an individual. It’s not an erratic attitude or way of living. It’s more about being steady and caring for your surroundings. Your life. Think about your money that way. You need to care for it. Take care of it and yourself. You don’t want to be pressing the market to do something for you.
Once you get into a mindset of keeping what you make, you remove the pressure of having someone else make your dreams come true. I believe in you. We all need a guide or someone to talk to about our road ahead. If you want help with your map and how to navigate in certain areas of your life, I’m here.
Survive and Thrive this month.
Warm regards,
“Your Survival Guy”
- If someone forwarded this to you, and you want to learn more about Your Survival Guy, read about me here.
- If you would like to contact me and receive a response, please email me at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com.
- Would you like to receive an email alert letting you know when Survive and Thrive is published each month? You can subscribe to my free email here.
P.S. Recently, while perusing Boston.com, Your Survival Guy clicked on an article about a great white shark sighting at Stony Beach in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, on the Fourth of July.
It piqued my interest because Your Survival Guy and fam just happened to be in Woods Hole earlier on the Fourth, going to and from Edgartown, MA, from Mattapoisett.
Most great white shark sightings you read about are out on the Cape in Chatham on the Atlantic, not in Buzzards Bay.
Anyway, if you don’t live under a rock, you know it’s the 50th anniversary of the movie Jaws. Great white sightings have a special allure this season, especially for clickbait “news.com” websites and the local news.
When I think about Woods Hole, I have anxious memories. Not from shark sightings but from sailing/motoring through the Hole when I was a kid. Sailing to Hadley or Great Harbor, especially Hadley, is the one in my mind when Buffett sings about that “One Particular Harbor.”
Navigating Woods Hole is—or can be—scarier than any great white shark sighting.
You see, the current runs strong through the “Hole” and everyone, especially the sport fishing boats, are in a rush to get to the fish and the fast ferries out of New Bedford, MA skim through it as if no other boats exist. Imagine the city bus plowing through the streets, and you get the picture.
Our power boat, the Tom Sawyer, has twin 300 hp Yamahas, so getting through the current and boat traffic is a piece of cake (sort of). But on our 30-foot Intrepid O’Day sailboat with a 15 hp diesel Yanmar, going against the current was no fun at all. If you want time to stand still, being on our sailboat, the Sunset against the current in Woods Hole was a good way to do it.
How does this relate to investing? I can’t tell you how many investors I’ve spoken with during my lifetime. A lot. Close to 30 years with double-digit conversations daily adds up. That’s compounding relationships into the hundreds that I have today.
Building solid relationships on trust takes years.
Like going through Woods Hole on a sailboat, I was forced to feel the anxiety of it all because it took time. It’s why when people ask me what kind of boating I do, I say I grew up sailing, which is why I powerboat today.
Sometimes you need to make money slowly, let it breathe, understand how hard it is to make it and feel the anxieties of life. It’s a master class in understanding risk and realizing, like I have, that your risk tolerance is usually an intolerance.
That doesn’t mean my investments always go up. That doesn’t mean I don’t run into rough weather boating. But if I stayed in cash, never left the dock, or never spoke with investors, I would have never experienced what it’s like to be a compounding machine. That’s what I want for you.
P.P.S. Your Survival Guy was talking with a client about a friend of his who recently retired and sold his practice.
“I told him all about you,” he said. Which I thanked him for, of course, and said, “Few have done more for my business than you.” (This individual has referred countless investors to me, and a handful of them are now clients.)
“Guess what he’s doing?” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“He’s investing in mortgages paying him 11%.”
“Good luck with that,” I said.
He continued telling me how all the guy’s friends were doing the same thing. Which made me think about how some investors eventually find their way to me because they got burned by someone else’s “great” investment ideas.
Understand, the real problem here is that this individual no longer has a job. No income other than these below-junk-bond-rated mortgages that tend to be the first to not pay when markets seize up. And if that happens, that money is lost forever. It cannot be made back. The remaining money might be able to get back to even, but not with lost dollars.
Believe me when I write to you about Dick Young’s North Star as the gravity for fixed income investments and the place to begin your thinking. In my conversations with you, you’re telling me about your matured CDs and how new ones pay much less than what you had. There are attractive treasuries out there that are state and local tax-free. You do not have to jump in headfirst, but you can dip a toe in and develop an investment plan.
The truth of the matter when it comes to hiring a fiduciary—an investment field guide—is that it often happens after investors get burned. Don’t let that be you. Investment lessons are taught the easy way or the hard way, but they will be taught.
P.P.P.S. The largest ever tagged Great White shark, Contender, has been spotted offshore in New England. Contender is a male, weighing 1,653 lbs., when he was tagged on January 17 off the Florida-Georgia coast. Contender was tagged by Ocearch, which described the tagging in January, writing: ” Contender was tagged by Ocearch. ”
OCEARCH’s most recent expedition has led to the tagging of CONTENDER, the largest male white shark ever tagged, sampled, and released by OCEARCH in the Western North Atlantic population. This marks a significant milestone in understanding the migratory patterns, reproductive behaviors, and survival strategies of these apex predators. With each tagged shark, OCEARCH gathers over 24 types of critical data, from genetics and health assessments to long-range migration patterns and reproductive status. This data is helping OCEARCH map essential shark habitats and inform future conservation efforts.
Download this post as a PDF by clicking here.
Originally posted on Your Survival Guy.
If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for the Richardcyoung.com free weekly email.