August 2020

Election season can be difficult for investors of all political stripes.  Uncertainty abounds.  It’s easy to tie a piece of one’s identity to a candidate or party.  If they win, we feel like winners.  If they lose, we feel diminished.  As far as investing goes, however, our candidates’ fates have about as much impact on our fortunes as our favorite sports teams. Election Season There is speculation every election season about who’s going to be in control.  The color-coding of red vs blue that was supposed to be temporary has been branded into the country’s psyche, a Terrible Towel for your tribe to twirl.  Proposals that are labeled anti-business are soon adopted and re-packaged as protecting American jobs.  Negotiations between parties begin with the numbers.  One side wants $1 trillion.  The other wants $3 trillion.  Only when the parties come close to agreeing on the amount of spending do they…

“Where are the bees?” I saw this question asked on a local social media group recently.  Several replies expressed the same sentiment.  It seems like the neighborhood has a bee shortage, likely due to the overwhelming collapse of the world’s insect population.  Surely the only insects left standing in a few years will be murder hornets.  Or maybe my neighbors have never noticed their insects until after reading a scary article.  To rebut anecdote with anecdote, I’ve got more bees than usual this year.  Then again, I planted my garden with intention.  The bees are there, you just need to give them what they want.  Coneflowers and bee balm see high traffic.  If you plant the same generic garden as everyone else on the block, don’t be surprised if you don’t get colorful visitors. It’s like the old investment sales quote, “If the ducks are quacking, feed them.”  This is…