2016 Nobel laureate Bob Dylan once sang, “he not busy being born is busy dying.” Before him, Charles Darwin expressed similar sentiments. Thankfully, Hill Investment Group remains busy “being born,” and doing so harmoniously — not in spite of but because of our emphasis on putting clients’ interests ahead of our own. The strategy recently ranked us among the highest levels of client service and attention in Charles Schwab’s annual national benchmarking study (as measured by advisor-to-client ratios). 

The way we figure it, if we stay busy like that, the growth part will follow, with our clients, strategic partners, and friends leading the charge on our behalf.  Why? They know us better than anyone. They’ve experienced working with us, getting to know what we can do and what our core values mean … not just in words but in actions. Better to hear it from them than from us. 

Most importantly, the more introductions others make for us to their friends, family and loved ones, the more time we can spend on activities aimed at making our current clients’ lives better. Retaining our small and intimate feel even as we grow? That may seem counterintuitive, but that’s how personal referrals have helped our first decade play out nicely. 

The launch of Odds On has made it even easier to introduce HIG to those you care about. If you have a family member, friend, or friend-of-a-friend who may benefit from getting to know us, we believe you will be doing them and us a huge favor by bringing us together. To send someone a complimentary copy of Odds On (book, Kindle or audio), just let us know. We’ll send it out promptly, so you can then busy yourself with other things! 

We can’t — and won’t try to — tell you what 2017 has in store for investors. But we can tell you that our approach to managing whatever does unfold remains the same. Here are a couple of inspirational quotes from other respected voices who share our perspective about the road ahead.

From Financial Author & Coach Nick Murray …

“The nature of successful investing, as we see it, is the practice of rationality under uncertainty. We’ll never have all the information we want, in terms of what’s about to happen, because we invest in and for an essentially unknowable future. Therefore we are dedicated to the principles of long-term investing that have most reliably yielded favorable long-term results over time: planning; a rational optimism based on experience; patience and discipline. These will continue to be the fundamental building blocks of our investment advice in 2017 and beyond.”

From Dimensional Fund Advisors’ paper, “Prediction Season” …

“In the end, the only certain prediction about markets is that the future will remain full of uncertainty. History has shown us, however, that through this uncertainty, markets have rewarded long-term investors who are able to stay the course.”

While nostalgia can be an effective way to market beer, in my opinion, it’s no way to manage a brewery’s 401(k) plan. At least not if it hearkens back to a time when it was routine for plan sponsors to load up a 401(k) plan with high-cost investment selections and expect participants to sort it out for themselves.

This is what I fear has happened when InBev Anheuser-Busch (A-B) proudly announced nine additions to its 401(k) plan investment current lineup of low-cost, passively managed index funds. Much to my disappointment, the additions represent a confusing mix of mostly active funds.

When I was assistant treasurer at A-B in the mid-80s, I was proud to help the company become one of the first in the nation to replace all active funds with index funds in both its 401(k) plan lineup and pension plan investments. Our early leadership has since become common practice, buttressed by the empirical evidence on how to advance retirement plan participants’ successful outcomes.

There is a glimmer of hope in the mix. Dimensional Fund Advisors appears to be among the firms A-B announced in its new “active management” lineup. While Dimensional offers a different strategy from traditional indexing – something we refer to as “evidence-based investing” – it’s not traditionally active either. Dimensional is itself a leading advocate of avoiding largely fruitless attempts to beat the market through stock-picking or market-timing.

Even with this positive exception, I feel the new lineup still represents an unfortunate shift, sacrificing better choices on the altar of more choices.

Maybe I’m being nostalgic, but the A-B I knew, knew better.