July, 2016 – Mid-Year Report
Dear Clients of Googins Advisors:
Enclosed are consolidated account summaries showing the semi-annual market value of all accounts you own through Googins Advisors. Keeping track of values over a series of six month time periods will give you a realistic picture of change and progress. (Also enclosed are the notices we are required to provide annually).
“You make most of your money in bad markets, you just don’t know it until later.” The past two and one half years have seen the markets bounce up and down but not end, in many cases, far from where they began. The average percent return over that time period for major stock indexes is historically low, but interest rates on fixed indexes have averaged even lower! Thus it should not be a difficult decision to participate in the equity markets, patiently waiting for the inevitable, but citizens are poorly educated about the possibilities and over educated about the risks related to equities.
As I watch the PBS July 4th program I think of the great benefits of living in the United States and the opportunity for citizens to become financially independent by participating in ownership of the companies that produce the jobs and products they need. What an important freedom enjoyed by people living in democratic countries! How important to protect and recognize those freedoms!
Wealth is spreading. It may be difficult to see when we know there are homeless, but The Christian Science Monitor recently reported that poverty has been reduced from two to one billion people worldwide while the world’s population has increased. In 1992, two billion people were living on $1.90 or less per day; by 2012 that number had dropped to one billion. Those facts prove that life is getting better for most people. Also, you might Google the statistics on freedom worldwide. More wealth and freedom go together.
We could talk about negative interest rates, a shuffling federal reserve, stultifying regulations, an insanely complicated tax system or an interesting “Brexit” vote, but those pieces do not recognize the truth that markets go from crisis to crisis ending up higher as history marches on.
So we are back to where we started: It is the people who own the corporations of the United States over their lifetime who own America and have gained control over their own destiny. Let’s increase that number; they protect and love what America stands for.
Sincerely yours,
Louise Googins Karl Kuelthau Andy Yadro