Our own Matt Hall was honored to be invited as a panelist at the annual Financial Planning Association Conference. His session, Citizens of the World: Developing Confidence in Global Investment for Better Portfolio Management, was moderated by financial journalist Charles Sherry. Robert Van Beek, who is converting Odds On to Dutch, and Sarah Newcomb, author of Loaded, were Matt’s co-panelists.

At Hill Investment Group, we are proud to deliver best-in-class investment reporting to our clients each quarter.  Having had experience with reporting writing software, this is no easy task.

As our clients know, our reports clearly illustrate the vital signs every investor should know – fees, returns and asset allocation.  Well, we’ve decided that’s not enough.  Late last year, we began experimenting with a new tool that will bring all your wealth into the palm of your hand.

So, now you can securely see your real estate holdings, banking assets, and private assets on the web or your phone. Check out the video below.

I’m making personal calls to our clients about the tool, but please let me know if you would like your access accelerated.  And, be sure to ask me about the ability to run a formatted personal financial statement as of any date with the click of a few buttons.

A friend (and client) wrote me recently, “thank you for not emailing me about Brexit.”

The week of the vote, he said he received at least a dozen emails from other financial firms with Brexit analysis.

The impact of Brexit was far less severe than the market pundits would have had you think at the time.

Yes, the Brexit vote did lead to initial volatility in markets, but this has not been exceptional nor out of the ordinary. One widely viewed barometer is the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index (VIX). Using S&P 500 stock index options, this index measures market expectations of near- term volatility.

You can see in the chart above that while there was a slight rise in volatility around the Brexit result, it was insignificant relative to other major events of recent years, including the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the eurozone crisis of 2011, and the severe volatility in the Chinese domestic equity market in 2015.

As always, the attention turns to the next “crisis du jour”.

Jim Parker reminds us in this pdf of the following:
When news breaks and markets move, content-starved media often invite talking heads to muse on the repercussions. Knowing the difference between this speculative opinion and actual facts can help investors stay disciplined during purported “crises.”

But it’s important to remember, not only must you correctly guess the outcome of the ____, you have to correctly guess how the market will react.

What we do know is that markets incorporate news instantaneously and that your best protection against volatility is to diversify both across and within asset classes, while remaining focused on your long-term investment goals.

The danger of investing based on recent events is that the situation can change by the time you act. A “crisis” can morph into something far less dramatic, and you end
up responding to news that is already in the price.

Journalism is often described as writing history on the run. Don’t get caught investing the same way.