Weekly TEN

Trust is earned by more than just basic honesty, but fullness of care. Is the person you’ve hired to look after your family really addressing all of your needs in a proactive way? Or simply trying to do the minimum to retain you as a client? At TEN, we know our value proposition and focus on providing comprehensive wealth management, we don’t seek to force a fit but find those ready to tackle the tasks necessary to get themselves to true financial independence.

(edited transcript) … There’s no such thing as a get rich quick, easy scheme. People keep wanting to buy into that wish. And there can be some very powerful, compelling narratives and stories that would make you believe that that can be true. Your intentions for an investment have nothing to do with how that investment’s actually going to perform. “Well, I just want to really super growth part of my portfolio!” You can call it whatever you want, it does not mean it’s going to behave as you want it to behave. Whether that’s low vol, high growth. What are you actually buying? Is that a realistic expectation? Generally speaking–– or particularly for the environment you’re in–– are all important things that you should look at. But then the last one, for not everyone’s dogging on said stock. The market gets hyper-fixated on the short term. When it’s the long term that’s going to matter. And that’s not just a euphemism. Like things take a long time to build. You go back and look at any of these story arcs of major innovations and changes. They don’t happen in 6 to 12 weeks. They happen often in 6 to 12 years or more. If you’re truly investing in something with that kind of time frame, to my earlier point, doesn’t mean it’s going to work or not work, but you’ve at least gotten that first step done of aligning hopefully some of your expectations with a more realistic time frame for when they may occur.

(edited transcript) … We are not in the same economy we were in 50 years ago. The greatest cautionary adage is, this time is different. And I’m not saying that exactly. But things do change. Things do evolve. We used to be retail, traditional banking, manufacturing, textiles. Now we’re in a very tech-driven, service-driven economy. And so, I think that does lessen some of those correlations that existed in the past. Companies that grow at higher rates usually demand higher valuations. And so that’s not necessarily troubling. Again, you can’t summarize an entire market or economy by one number. As much as people try to do it. You’ve really got to piece it and look underneath. I think it’s also a huge reason why investors have been so off. They’ve been incredibly bearish. You know they look around and their neighbor’s business might be shutting down. And they’re like, “Well how can the S&P 500 go up so much?” The S&P 500 really has no correlation to your buddy’s local pizza business. Once upon a time, though of course, those companies weren’t in the S&P 500, I think they were indicative of just kind of that more traditional-based economy. Now those big companies are so far removed. I think it’s just a more complicated market to try to invest in. That’s why we rely not only on a bunch of internal partners, but external partners to help us evaluate as many different things with people who have the time to be focused on a specific area as much as they can to do, you know, as good a job for our clients as we can.

(edited transcript) … [Daryl] It’s very, very easy to say, “of course I’m a fiduciary”. Really where you see that actually happen though, is in working with people over time. [Tim] And what does that mean to you? [Daryl] Well, for me, it’s actually just showing you, this is how I am taking care of you, this is how I know and I can reflect back to you, this is in your best interest right now. And whether that’s a hard conversation or whether that’s a positive thing or whatever, and it’s all based on the knowledge that we have of the clients and continue to build on. So I think that’s really valuable. And I think recent events make it really, really clear that in this office, we care about what we do because we care about the people that we serve. [Tim] Absolutely.

(edited transcript) … [Tim] There should be a certain standard of care that goes across the board, and I think that’s about structure. How are you structuring servicing? How are you structuring how you manage portfolios? Are you pulling up portfolios one by one to look at them and see what should be done? Or do you have a way to be able to do it systematically? That’s one of the things we pride ourselves on here on both fronts, is having that system. What we’re always going to make sure we’re doing is addressing those things that are genuine needs for clients wherever they’re at. That’s the point of customization is that it isn’t a one size fits all, and again, that can go both ways. [Daryl] I think I always go back to the adage of any time you’re ending a meeting, I want that person to walk out of the room saying “I was the most important person in the room.” Which is very cutesy in a way, but is also just really a true idiom where you’re basically saying, I want to make sure that I’m listening to you to the best of my ability, so that with the tools that we have, we’re going to hit those things. I mean, to what you’re saying earlier, we can be sophisticated without being complex, and that sophistication is going to hit all of the different needs for a variety of different clients. [Tim] Perfectly said, Daryl.

(edited transcript) … With Dolly Parton’s death, one of the things that’s always impressed me about her is her ability to enjoy the day, at least, that is what it seems like. That’s rare. I think that also helps in terms of longevity. I mean, she seems to have continued doing what she loves. It […]

(edited transcript) … Lots of news around SpaceX. Not a recommendation to buy or sell the stock at all, to be clear. Important lessons from it? I think the number one is, just the power of narratives. A lot of people thought it was a get rich quick scheme. And to date, that has not proven to be the case. In my experience, get rich quick things don’t work. Second point is, because we heard a lot of people calling this new part of their portfolio, “this will be the super growth portfolio” or this will be– your intentions and what the market is going to do are not the same thing. And we watch this, people think that they can speak something into existence as it relates to the markets or their portfolio. Understand what you really own. It isn’t what you’re calling it that matters. What it really is, in general, maybe specific to the environment that you’re in. And then the third main point is again the verdict’s still out. And again, I don’t have one. I’m not expressing one. But the market gets, and investors get, hyper-focused on the short term when you don’t really understand how things are going to work for a much longer time frame. Innovations don’t take 6 to 12 weeks. They take 6 to 12 years or more. Doesn’t make anything a good or bad investment. But even the good investments that you may make are going to get short circuited. If you have an unrealistic time frame that you need those things to manifest. And that’s one of the things, it’s hard enough to pick the right investment. You then start laying on top of it an intention or a need. “I need this thing to double or triple in the next year.” You’ve made it almost impossible to become a successful investor.

(edited transcript) … [Daryl] There’s a saying that basically says, “Getting to your first $1 million is the hardest part.” And after that things get a little bit easier. [Ben] I think in reality, what it is, is the returns might not differ, but getting to the second hurdle, that $2 million mark, 10% of 100,000 is a very different number than 10% of a million. So, it’s like you start to see larger cash dollar amounts as a return. Right? Which gets people more excited because they see these larger dollar amounts. Instead of making 10,000 you’re making 100,000. [Daryl] Well and there’s also that point where you’re contributing– exactly, the same percentage is at play and it just looks like it’s, it’s basically a straight line. And then you hit that exponential piece– [Ben] Which is the same reason why we try to tell younger folks get started early. [Daryl] Exactly! [Ben] Get that 100,000, get that million built up. Because after that you’re going to get the benefit of that 10% return on a much bigger portfolio, which you’re not going to have to put as much of your own money in. And you’re going to be financially independent much earlier on. [Daryl] That also makes me think of a phrase that I like to tell people all the time. I have never met a person who hasn’t said, “I wish I started earlier.” Not a person. I’ve never heard that. But the reality is today is the very earliest that you can start. [Ben] You can’t change the past. [Daryl] You can’t change the past, but you can certainly change today.

(edited transcript) … [Tim] Sunday night when we got the call when we got the call that we were probably going to lose our house– we didn’t, as of right now. When we thought we were losing our home, there wasn’t a single thing we had bought that we were worried about losing. It was the kid’s artwork, some birth certificates, you know, there’s some things we’re like, man, we wish we would have probably put a handful of these things in a fireproof safe, or had one. You build a goal, you build a plan, but you refine it all the time. [Daryl] Yeah, absolutely. We’re a ways from the fire, but it still was just this opportunity for us to talk as a family. I mean, we actually do “top ten” lists all the time. Top ten rides at Disneyland. Top ten mac and cheeses we’ve had around the United States. Like all these things. Like that’s what we do, it’s totally important. But what it did is it afforded the opportunity to go ahead and say, “what is the top ten stuff that you would bring out of the house?” [Tim] Yeah, like when the moment of truth comes, whether it’s stock market volatility, fire, God forbid, you got to have that plan in place. [Daryl] Yeah.