Adapted from a letter I sent to my private wealth management clients on June 5, 2024.

It’s graduation season. Announcements, invitations, ceremonies, parties, and an overall exciting time of year! This is a special year in our household as we are celebrating both a high school and college graduation.

For those of us who’ve accumulated a few years since we walked across the stage and collected our diploma, we know that graduation is an important ritual. It’s a celebration of hard work and commitment and a launching into the next phase of life that’s full of possibilities. However, we also understand that graduation is really just a new beginning and that in real life (“IRL,” as the kids say), there will be many challenges ahead that won’t look or feel anything like the graded textbook tests in school.

Headlines were made recently when the Dow Jones Industrials (“DJIA”) stock average crossed the 40,000 mark. In 1995, when I graduated college with a finance degree and an eagerness to enter the professional investing field, we were excited that the DJIA index had just crossed 4,000!

It is not only a moment worth commemorating, but also reflecting. To have fully received the market’s “Dow 40,000” cash-rich graduation gift, investors have had to endure great tests of conviction and periods riddled with anxiety and stress. In the school of investing, class is often unruly and disruptive, but over time it has been very rewarding!

Key lessons learned:

To deal with the disruptions, we will continue to use financial planning and portfolio management techniques to protect near-term spending needs from stock market volatility. Well-structured bond portfolios and cash management have played a key role here.

To capture wealth building gains, we look to market history, which suggests that despite concerns around current events, we should expect more of the same: stock volatility, panics, bear markets, and, as in the past, eventual upward growth. To benefit from these gains, we need to keep funds earmarked for long-term goals invested in a well-designed portfolio. No “skipping class” and selling when things get tough!

Markets & Wealth Planning

Over the past few months, I’ve shared thoughts on international investing, enduring portfolio design, and estate and protection planning on my “Money Matters” radio interviews. You can listen to the audio and read the transcripts via the links below on my blog. Please let me know if there are any topics you’d like to hear about more!

Money Matters

Team Life

I recently announced that Bridget Carey has joined our team as a Client Relationship Specialist, and Kaya Diebes as an Associate Financial Planner. They have already made a positive impact and we’re delighted to have them on the team. In case you missed it, you can read more here.

Additionally, Anne Briggs has joined the Cahill operations team in a role specializing in account maintenance. You may hear from Anne if we are managing your retirement plans outside of our primary custodians (Charles Schwab & Fidelity) as she oversees maintaining outside account data feeds. Anne has an impressive musical background, holding two master’s degrees in music-related fields, and she is currently working on completing her PhD in Ethnomusicology at the University of Minnesota.

One of our favorite team rituals is jumping into a frozen lake as part of the Special Olympics Polar Plunge. With the mild winter, we had open (but still quite cold!) water and even caught a bit of airtime with Fox 9 news (check out the video!) as we beat a hasty retreat to shore!

Congratulations, again, on graduating to the next level as investors! We’re looking forward to carrying on together along the path forward. As always, please let us know If there is anything we can do for you.

Thank you,

Scott Oeth, CFP, MSFS

Sources:
Yahoo Finance, “This Day In Market History: Dow Hits 4,000”