Decision Investments is pleased to announce that long time friend and colleague, John Weinstein CFP®, MBA has accepted a Managing Partner and Portfolio Manager position effective today. John brings with him 14 years experience working with a large Wall Street firm and an established base of clients, relationships and assets. John joins a growing number of successful Financial Advisors who appreciate the many benefits of working with a smaller independent firm.
As a Managing Partner, John’s primary focus is on Financial Planning and Portfolio Management. John holds a Cerified Financial Planner CFP® designation and earned a Masters in Business Administration MBA from George Washington University. Beyond his overall investing capabilities, John focuses on identifying investments that pay above average dividends while still trading at attractive valuations.
John is civically minded and has been an active volunteer with the La Jolla Town Council, La Jolla Newcomers, Voices for Children, Big Brother/Big Sister, It’s all about the Kids Foundation and with the San Diego Film Festival.
John’s passion for the industry and for helping others shows every day. In addition to his extensive knowledge in Financial Planning and Investing, he prides himself on a client-centric mindset which includes same day responses to client questions, offering client education events and providing truly individualized investing solutions. Decision Investments and our clients are fortunate to benefit from all that John will be able to contribute in his new role.
Market Stats
August 8th, 2011The chart below highlights just how fast, furious and widespread the decline has been over the last couple of weeks. Among other ugly stats, you will notice that Small cap companies as well as the Telecom, Materials, Industrials and Financials sectors all sold off near 20% from recent highs. The declines in Brazil, Australia, Italy, France and Germany were even steeper.
The broad based selling, resulting (in large part) from the S&P downgrading US debt, caused trillions of dollars in lost market capitalization for US Equities. Where did the money go? Ironically, most of it went into the “safe haven” of US government debt pushing treasury prices higher and yields lower.
All of the market gains that took place during the period that the Fed was conducting “QE2” have been wiped out and the yields on stocks compared to bonds hasn’t been this high since 1962. No investor, institutional or otherwise, knows what is going to happen next but seasoned investors don’t sit idle in volatile markets. Whether it’s selling names that have broken down technically or buying oversold opportunities, the key is paying attention and being active.
c/o Bespoke Investments
We encourage you to revisit Dow 12,000, Now What?, which we wrote in January when we posited that the “big Bounce” from market lows was over and offered strategies to help protect and grow portfolios in volatile markets. We do feel strongly that there are opportunities to exploit at current levels but would like to see the S&P stabilize before we make any more purchases.
In the coming weeks we will try to identify companies who have been unduly punished as a result of the broad sell off…companies down 20% or more that likely won’t be selling 20% fewer burgers, servers, coffee, mobile phones or services (as a result of an S&P downgrade, or European debt crisis) than they were poised to sell three weeks ago when the markets turned.
Posted in Financial Planning, Investments, Market Commentary, News, Uncategorized | No Comments »