portfolio management

It’s Second Look—and Second Opinion!—Season
graphic shows the words "'Tis the Season" inside a magnifying glass

Clients, the markets are at a low point. It’s a prime time to revisit our holdings! Let’s take a second look. 

To be clear, portfolio reviews are part and parcel of our regular business. But these times of churn and change are a great opportunity to look more closely—and try to make sense of everything given the context. 

Conversations with some of you lately have inspired some changes. Could it be time to garner tax losses and take a different approach with some of your resources going forward? 

Our goal at 228 Main is to grow your buckets. We believe the better off you are, probably the better off we will be down the road. That’s enough for us to review and comment on your plans and planning, as well as your investment holdings and accounts. 

While it’s Second Look Season for us in the shop, could it be Second Opinion Season for anyone in your life? It could be you know folks who are paying fees for investment management when their investments don’t seem to be managed at all. Does anyone in your life have long-term investments stuck in stagnant short-term holdings? 

I often say I’m in business to talk all day. If you have questions about your holdings, I might as well be talking to you and your loved ones! And clients, please know that we have nothing to lose by your seeking a second opinion of your own. All the power to you: you are the boss of what you do with your wealth. (We seem to get all the business we deserve, and none that we don’t.) 

No matter where our resources land, remember that the markets go up and down. We won’t tell fairy tales about “minimizing risk” or getting market returns without enduring the inevitable fluctuations. We will not ignore that the price of so-called “safety” is often the loss of potential future gains. 

But we do believe in striving for long-term total returns. So we live with volatility. No waves, no voyage. No rain, no flowers. 

Clients, when you have questions about your situation, please write or call. If you know someone who would like to chat with us, let them know Second Opinion Season is in full swing, now through year-end! 

Thank you all, for everything. 

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It’s Second Look—and Second Opinion!—Season – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

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Lessons from the Open Road: Just Change the Tire
photo shows a car with a flat tire on the side of the road

As spring fades and summer draws near, some of us are gearing up for road trips. (Although we know gas prices might affect our plans!) We’re thinking lately about life on the open road—and what lessons it might offer investors. 

Imagine you’re going along a winding road, and the car gets a flat tire. There are some choices available here. Some might hop out and swap the flat for the spare. Some might get a hold of a car service or a trusted friend in the area and have them change the tire. These approaches at least get you back on the road. Reasonable enough, right? 

But there are other choices available. We could, for instance, slash the other three tires. We could dump a can of gasoline on the whole darn thing and light it up! We could declare it a lost cause and walk away. We could take the flat as the confirmation we were looking for that this journey was a mistake after all.  

We can abandon the endeavor. 

It sounds outrageous, given the facts of the matter. The trip was your plan: you got in the car, loaded the supplies, and set out. Sure, this moment could be a fabulous excuse to turn back, but if that’s the case, it seems to be more about the driver’s relationship to the journey—and not their relationship to the setback. 

It’s not black and white, of course. There are approaches that we might employ along the way that we choose before we make the bigger, more crucial decisions. We might kick the flat tire. We might shake our fists at the sky. We might call someone to say that we are frustrated or scared or sad. Yes, you bet! Sometimes we need to vent stress out of our bodies before we make decisions. 

But how many endeavors do we deny a fighting chance when we refuse to just change the tire and get back on the road? 

You can go the whole journey this way. It will get you where you’re going. 

Clients, maybe you can already hear the lessons for managing a portfolio and working with downs as well as the ups. We let our resources carry us, for the long haul. 

Want to talk more about this—or anything else? Call or write, anytime. 

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Lessons from the Open Road: Just Change the Tire – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

Portfolio Themes: Spring 2022 Updates
graphic shows blooming white flowers and text reading "portfolio themes: spring 2022 updates"

In our portfolio management, we try to pick and choose our spots. We’re investing for the long term, after all. We are not indexers; we invest in individual companies for their unique characteristics and the potential behind their story. We avoid knee-jerk reactions to any day-to-day news.  

Sometimes, though, the daily news covers an issue that’s big enough to linger. Much of the news cycle lately has been dedicated to the war in Ukraine. The implications for the global economy are profound and have a direct impact on our work. 

The war may be accelerating trends that were already there, but now they are more pressing. 

OIL, ENERGY, FOOD, & BEYOND 

Maybe you’ve noticed at the gas station, but one of the big impacts is the price of oil. In the short term, we foresee great profits for oil companies, but skyrocketing oil prices and energy uncertainty have also renewed interest in the next energy revolution. Solar power and electric vehicles have been on their way for a long time, but the world needs them more urgently than ever before. 

These issues are interconnected with trends in agriculture. Ukraine and Russia are not only both food producers: they’re even bigger producers of fertilizers, supplies, and equipment. Agricultural commodities were already on the rise before war broke out, so food producers around the world were already investing heavily in new planting. The journey ahead will be interesting for even “boring” food production and distribution companies, but greater profits may be rapidly approaching. 

THE IMPACT OF INTEREST RATES 

Those rising prices have energized more interest in durable commodities such as copper and gold, which we’ve been following in our shop for a long time. 

But the double whammy of rising interest rates and rising materials costs has a cooling effect on the housing industry, which we have been easing out of by steps. The shortage in the nation’s housing supply persists—and probably will for a spell. For now, homebuilders are a longer-term, lower-priority investment for us. 

WHAT THE PANDEMIC MEANS FOR TECH 

In times of strife, investors tend to seek comfort and safety, so more volatile sectors such as technology are starting to come back down to earth. We believe this may create buying opportunities in software and internet companies, which are less vulnerable to high interest rates and commodity prices. (They are often light on debt and low on material costs.) 

Even as COVID-19 continues across the globe, some areas of life have become more manageable. The air is clearing a little for airlines and travel stocks, although we are more interested in another area of potential: biotech and pharmaceutical companies. While pharmacy stocks may be easing as the pandemic rally subsides, we are looking forward to new breakthroughs in the years ahead. The advances made in the pandemic, we believe, will prove to offer even more applications elsewhere in the future. 

TAKING STOCK 

The world is a complex place. As always, our thinking evolves on a weekly basis through our research process. Our vision, however, stays trained on these longer-term trends—and what they mean for our longer-term plans and planning. 

Clients, want to know what this means for your portfolio? Please email us or call. 

Content in this material is for general information only and not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.  

Stock investing includes risks, including fluctuating prices and loss of principal. 

The economic forecasts set forth in this material may not develop as predicted and there can be no guarantee that strategies promoted will be successful. 

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Portfolio Themes: Spring 2022 Updates – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

This text is available at https://www.228Main.com/.

Probabilities Versus Possibilities
photo shows a goldfish with a shark fin strapped to it swimming with the fin above water

Our energy is a finite resource. Sure, we consume food and we sleep to replenish our bodies, but they too don’t last forever. The basic formula for kinetic energy requires velocity—movement. But we don’t always direct our movement in the most skillful ways.

For instance, we humans are great at focusing on low-probability events. After all, these are the events that catch headlines: “if it bleeds, it leads” the saying goes. (I mean, how do you think the world ended up with Shark Week?)

We wrote recently about bear attacks, among all things, and now we’re thinking more deeply about these ideas. What if instead of placing so much energy into unlikely (albeit scary) events, we limit our focus a little: what if we focused more instead on what’s probable?

In the markets, we hope to see at least the typical patterns of probability. Some ups and downs every year, a general trajectory of more up than down across almost any stretch of five or more years. No guarantees. But these are the general probabilities of the long-term proposition.

We don’t lock into losses by treating drops like the end of the world. Of course fatal shark attacks do happen, they are real, but we don’t stay out of the pool because one time somebody got eaten out in the open sea. That just wouldn’t make a ton of sense, huh?

The possibilities are endless, and they could consume us until our last breath. Let’s direct more energy toward what’s probable.

Clients, want to discuss what’s probable and suitable for your situation? Reach out anytime.

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Probabilities Versus Possibilities – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

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The Twenty Stock Concept: A Deep Dive

Clients, you know that our communications are you-centric: we prefer to focus on the situations, challenges, and concerns facing you. But from time to time it makes sense to talk about the tools and techniques we use to meet those issues. Let us give you some background and then introduce a strategy that’s become an important tool in portfolio reviews: the Twenty Stock Concept.

There are many ways to invest for the long haul, and we strive to participate in the growth of the economy over time. Many people’s financial objectives require the growth of capital, whether to improve their financial position, build toward retirement, or preserve purchasing power.

We manage individual stocks for people (which, by the way, is one of the services that sets our shop apart). Because we prefer to invest in the ownership of carefully chosen companies rather than buy investment products made of hundreds of holdings, it’s become more and more important for us to develop a systematic and efficient way to monitor and adjust portfolios over time.

At any given time, our Buy List includes 30 to 35 equity opportunities, which we supplement with more diversified ballast holdings. Client accounts may then wind up with even more names in them, as sometimes positions are held even after they’ve rotated off the Buy List. Doing it this way creates a lot of moving parts…

… which is where the Twenty Stock Concept comes in! This strategy helps us pare things back to only those parts of our investment philosophy that we feel are most fundamental. This list of holdings becomes the template from which we work for new portfolios and for reviews of existing portfolios.

The foundation of the Twenty Stock Concept is great companies trading at fair prices. These are usually blue-chip companies that dominate their sectors. They are our first picks, and we expect to hold them for a long time. We usually have 10 to 12 of these blue chips on our list.

To round out the list, we select what we perceive to be the best opportunities from the rest of the Buy List. These will include cyclical companies that we hope and believe we are purchasing at favorable points in the cycle. The rest of the opportunities may include other bargains from anywhere else in the investment universe.

Because the Twenty Stock Concept is a starting place, a template, not all of our holdings are fundamental enough to make the cut.

What gets left out? Our main investment approach also includes a handful of speculative growth-seeking holdings. Some of these may be smaller, unproven companies that we see explosive potential in. Others are regional or sector plays in areas that may or may not pan out. We think there is a place for these holdings—otherwise we would not have them to begin with. But some clients may not need or want the turnover and volatility they bring.

As an in-house system, the Twenty Stock Concept serves two functions for us: it allows us to provide a focused offering for those who prefer to own a smaller number of names, and it gives us a consistent approach that we makes our services available to smaller accounts than we would otherwise have the capacity to manage.

No guarantees, of course. We base our work on our opinions; no matter how carefully we do our research, sometimes the future confounds us.

But it is intensely interesting, and often rewarding. Clients, if you would like to talk about this or anything else, please email or call.

Investing involves risk including loss of principal.

No strategy assures success or protects against loss.

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The Twenty Stock Concept – 228Main.com Presents: The Best of Leibman Financial Services

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