Happy Holidays!

 Happy Holidays From Lumen Capital Management

 

I know we are in strange times right now.  However, I believe better times are coming next year.  This holiday season is going to be so different for many of us, but get through it we will.  I am increasingly of the belief that we will feel as if we've endured a great and powerful thing after the storm around us  blows over.  It is my hope that we emerge a better society from having made it through this plague.  

In spite of our strange circumstances it is my fondest wish for you to have a most joyous holiday season as well as a prosperous and healthy 2020. I am honored to serve you, my clients, every day and I thank each and every one of you for your continued trust and support. I also look forward to catching up early in 2021. I leave you now with one of my favorite comments from Warren Buffett since they are as relevant today as when they were first uttered.

 

“The unconventional, but inescapable, conclusion to be drawn from the past fifty years is that it has been far safer to invest in a diversified collection of American businesses than to invest in securities — Treasuries, for example — whose values have been tied to American currency. That was also true in the preceding half-century, a period including the Great Depression and two world wars. Investors should heed this history. To one degree or another it is almost certain to be repeated during the next century.

 

Stock prices will always be far more volatile than cash-equivalent holdings. Over the long term, however, currency-denominated instruments are riskier investments — far riskier investments — than widely-diversified stock portfolios that are bought over time and that are owned in a manner invoking only token fees and commissions. That lesson has not customarily been taught in business schools, where volatility is almost universally used as a proxy for risk. Though this pedagogic assumption makes for easy teaching, it is dead wrong: Volatility is far from synonymous with risk. Popular formulas that equate the two terms lead students, investors and CEOs astray.”  {*}

 

(*) http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-on-risk-and-volatility-2015-4

I am going to take some time off to rest and recharge the batteries over the holiday season.  I'll be radio silent on this blog until January unless something comes up requiring some commentary.  I look forward to resuming posting next year.  Happy holidays, stay healthy and God bless! 

Chris