Spring Blog
A lot of you will be happy to hear that I finally took a vacation! Although I can’t take much credit.
If it was left entirely up to me, I probably would have cancelled my trip and opted to stay in the office. Especially with the uneventful first quarter we were enjoying. It was ONLY the worst 10-day start to a year on record and the market only lost a little over 10% as of February 11th. But with the trip booked many months in advance and me having already cancelled this trip once before, I told myself I would just work when we landed and begrudgingly left my office.
I’ve often sat in my very grounded office chair and opined that it would be highly unusual to take a trip and not experience any turbulence at some point during the flight. I like drawing the comparison between flying and investing. Because much like flying, it would be very unusual to not experience some turbulence at some point while investing. Over the years, I’ve been accustomed to getting on the intercom and making the ‘fasten seatbelt’ announcement. The one that goes something like “we’re turning on the fasten seatbelt sign, we’ll turn it off and continue serving cocktails and peanuts after we get through this rough patch.” In fact, we’ve prided ourselves on communicating and staying in touch with clients during these very normal rough patches. This time was no different. We made it a point to reach out and stay in contact with everyone we have the pleasure of serving and assuring them that it wasn’t time to jump out of the plane and deploy the parachute.
Maybe it’s because I don’t like to leave the comfort of my office very often or that I hardly fly anymore. Or maybe it’s because I’m usually comfortably seated in the pilot’s cockpit of the ‘wealth management’ plane. But for whatever reason, I’d almost forgotten just how scary turbulence can be. This had to be one of the most turbulent flights I’ve ever been on. Knowing everything I know and talking about turbulence for as long as I have, I still felt the panic and fear set in. After promising that I’d stop using that stupid analogy and dislodging my stomach from my throat, we finally landed in one piece. Being back on solid ground, it occurred to me just how scary it can be to experience the turbulence we’d been experiencing in the stock market to start the year. And although I, as the ‘pilot,’ have complete confidence in the flight path, it doesn’t mean that our passengers won’t sometimes be uncomfortable. So ladies and gentleman, this is your captain speaking. On behalf of myself and the flight crew- we realize that you have your choice of airlines when you fly and want to sincerely thank you for choosing to fly with us!
By the way, the week I was gone turned out to be one of the best weeks the stock market has had this year. Maybe I’m not as important as I think I am. Or as many of you have already pointed out, I should leave more often!