We love traditions, so it was with particular delight that we reconvened here in St. Louis earlier this month, for our annual summer family party. The shindig celebrated a dozen years as a firm – and counting. In my career I haven’t ever been part of a group with better chemistry across all age groups. The team and family fellowship is one of the main reasons I still love what I do!

Since many of the market’s long-term rewards come from the risks you’re willing to take, making serious money usually hurts — at least when it appears to be out of favor with the “consensus.” Morgan Housel’s recent blog post, “Every Great Investment Hurts,” offers a fresh perspective on the source of that pain.

To trade profitably in highly competitive markets, you not only must make the right calls on future pricing, you’re best off making them when most other investors think you’re wrong. That’s what this simple diagram from Housel’s post suggests.

How do you end up in that profitable sweet spot? You can try guessing correctly almost all the time (super hard). Or you can embrace evidence-based investing, which should guide you toward being correct more often than not … if you stick with your plans. That can still be hard, but at least the odds are stacked in your favor.

Anyone who’s been with us for a while knows we’ve long felt that among our greatest roles is to help investors Take the Long View® with their wealth. But did you notice a subtle change? If you’re especially attentive, you may have caught that we’ve now established a Registered Trademark ® to more fully protect our defining tagline.

Until now, we’ve had the sentiment more lightly protected as a service mark. When our marketing team first suggested the mark back in 2005, we felt that “taking the long view” perfectly expressed our passion for changing people’s point of view about their wealth, offering them an improved vantage point – a symbolic Hill – from which they could see past the daily details toward their ultimate goals.

Our belief in the power of the expression hasn’t changed one bit. In fact, we realized we’d achieved an important milestone when people started repeating our tagline back to us, demonstrating how much they, too, valued the sentiment. We decided it was time to beef up our rights to ensure that Take the Long View® would continue to serve us, our clients and our community for a long, long time to come.

Would you like to Take the Long View® along with us? Let us know how we can help!

*PS We cleverly purchased www.takethelongview.com and, if you ever decide to try this address, you’ll notice it takes you straight to our site.