There is a time for nuance, and there is a time for clarity.
The actions of Hamas last weekend must be named for what it is and not sanitized in the slightest: wickedness and evil.
Even in an increasingly secular West, such terms are being used across television screens and social media.
The voice of weeping and bitter mourning over the slaughter of the innocents in Israel is overwhelming.
Why address this? You might ask. Aren’t you a wealth management firm composed of financial advisors?
Yes.
And that is why we should.
Because this is what a financial advisor does every day on the macro and the micro.
It’s a part of the job description.
Financial advice grows out of personal relationships and not simply data and percentages on a page. Human beings cannot be reduced to numbers or a number.
We give advice in view of the headlines of news and the headlines of our client’s lives. This does not mean we react. Instead, we evaluate.
Most of the time we serve people on relatively mundane and ordinary days.
Other times though, we help people navigate the difficult days after divorce and death along with the joyful moments of marriage and birth.
Markets continue on in the worst of human events.
Take this historical chart for example.
Scientific breakthroughs and inventive wonders hardly imagined by previous generations have occurred along this timeline as well as global war and unspeakable atrocities.
Investing occurs in a world like this.
Insensitive to note? I don’t think so.
We make decisions—even when we don’t—that shape our lives and finances.
This is not a time for predictions and beware those who do. Markets often move in ways we do not expect. Remember that correlations of markets’ response to current events in the past are not causations of market responses to the events of the present and future.
We can plan our financial lives with prudence, we can engage in charitable giving for others with generosity, and we can pray with sincerity.
We can also tell those we love out loud in word and deed: “I love you”.
Love, unlike money, is a legacy that never runs out.
[This is also available as a video on our YouTube Channel]
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Sources:
- HT: Chart from Michael Batnick: https://theirrelevantinvestor.com/2023/10/09/a-reminder-of-whats-important/