Around The World In 100 Words- February, 2020: Week 5

Just in case you missed it, Sunday was the 54th playing of the SuperBowl, with small-market team Kansas City coming from behind to win it all -and in spectacular style, nothing less. The Globe & Mail’s article on the game can be found <here>. 

The relevance of this to investing? Well, patience comes to mind. This is a pre-requisite, where at times your portfolio can also be down and appearing to be going no-where. When this happens, keeping your eye on the bigger picture is critical and this requires the quiet patience of seasoned investors. Strategy is another word, with Kansas City sticking to their game plan -even when things weren’t going so well, and then executing on it to win it all. This too is a pre-requisite when it comes to investing, where the institutional wealth management companies we partner with have time-proven strategies for winning in the markets. By staying true to their investment philosophy through good markets and bad, they deliver on their objective to build wealth for investors. Balance is a third point with application to both the game and to investing. Kansas City’s defence held up well despite being down in the 3rd quarter by ten points. Stopping the 49ers rushing was critical to positioning the Chiefs to rally for 21 unanswered points to win the game. So it is with investing, where protecting your portfolio from big losses are key to long term gains. Our approach is always to look at both ends of the field and position your retirement savings for balanced growth over time. This way, no Hail Mary’s are needed in the dying seconds for victory. Last is Resolve, which ties into patience, but deserves mention on its own. Resolve is a quality of character where, to paraphrase Rudyard Kipling, involves: 

                                Keeping your head when all about you   

                                Are losing theirs and blaming it on you.   

                                Trusting yourself when all men doubt you.

                                Meeting with Triumph and Disaster 

                                And treating those two impostors just the same.   

                                And holding on when there is nothing in you 

                                Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

                                [Do this] and yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.

Resolve means a resolution made to follow some course of action with firmness of purpose, intent and determination. Kipling is right -the full text of his poem “If” can be found <here> -and keeping one’s resolve when markets are lower is integral to successful wealth accumulation over the long term.

I thought about tying in the legendary (US) SuperBowl commercials to this week’s Blog, and in watching them, have concluded the best by far is the “Secret Kicker” which you can -and should- watch <here>. Love it!

Martin