Wealth Management

The Washington Nationals are going to the World Series for the first time in their history. The Nationals moved to Washington DC in 2005 from Montreal where they were the first major league baseball team in Canada. The Expos played in Montreal from 1969 to 2004. The combined franchise has had some phenomenal players like Vladimir Guerrero, Stephen Strasburg, Andre Dawson, Tim Raines, Pedro Martinez, Gary Carter, Jayson Werth, and Bryce Harper.

Full stop. The end. Period. No more. No Mas. I’ve noticed lately that politicians, commentators, and other public figures have been using the term “full stop.” I guess they want to punctuate their point, so the viewer or reader knows they’ve stated their position, and there will be no more discussing the issue. They’re moving on to the next item.

Twice a year, my neighborhood holds a yard sale. It’s well advertised, so people come from all over town to hunt for trinkets and treasures. The buyers arrive with a plan and a purpose.

Schwab dropped a bombshell on Tuesday when they announced they’ll reduce commission rates on stocks, ETFs, and options to zero! Not to be outdone, TD Ameritrade and E*Trade quickly followed suit. As a result of the announcement, Schwab’s stock fell 14%, TD Ameritrade slumped 28%, and E*Trade plunged 19%. The loss of trading commissions will result in a significant drop in revenue for these firms. Their pain is your gain.

We like shiny new objects. For investors, the object is the initial public offering or IPO. Getting in on the ground floor of a hot offering is a huge draw. A few high-profile private companies are now publicly traded. Companies like UBER, Pinterest, Slack, Lyft, Chewy, Beyond Meat, Levi Strauss, Zoom Video, Smile Direct, and Peloton are now trading publicly.

We want certainty in an uncertain world. We want to know the weather report, and what’s for dinner, and where we’ll spend our vacation, and how our stocks will perform.