In a recent post from Seth Godin, he explores the admissions process at our nation’s best schools, and there are some perfect parallels with investing. He notes that a significant percentage, 20% or more, of the applicants are extremely well-qualified to attend the school, yet only 1/4 of the qualified pool will actually be offered admission. More importantly, the admissions staff will agonize over the choices for weeks, which is time-intensive and expensive. In reality, picking a random 25% of the “extremely well-qualified” pool would likely yield a similar (successful) outcome. In other words, they’d still end up with a brilliant class of some of the world’s brightest students of that vintage.

Hmmm. Sounds eerily similar to active-investing versus evidenced-based investing. The basic choice is either:

• Over-pay to under-perform by hiring an active manager. Then watch them painfully and expensively try to pick the next winner based on extensive research and interviews with the management teams of the best companies out there, or
• Take advantage of the academic evidence. Holding thousands of these companies across the globe in low-cost, tax-efficient investment vehicles and tilting to the factors that have higher expected returns have historically outperformed over long periods of time.

Our clients and fans know which camp we fall into. In Seth’s words: “If you don’t have proof that picking actually works, then let’s announce the randomness and spend our time on something worthwhile instead.” Importantly for our clients, Hill’s approach yields significant additional benefits because it allows the Hill team the time and energy to focus on each client’s unique situation, goals, and dreams. Whether it be passing more to heirs, buying a vacation home, or supporting their favorite charity, we strive to help our clients do so with more clarity, confidence, and purpose.

One of our favorite bloggers, Seth Godin, recently wrote about a topic that he’s rarely mentioned in his daily blog and more than a dozen books: money. It’s a topic that is near and dear to us.

This recent post is worth the 60-second read to help you think about what money means to you. Seth says, “before there’s money, there’s a story,” which is precisely the reason that the first thing we want to know when meeting a future client is “what’s your story?”

Our personal stories often have a huge impact on how we feel about money. How we feel about money can have an enormous impact on our outlook on the future.

We want to understand your story so that we can build a long term investment plan that gives you confidence in your future—A plan that can stop you from worrying about the money and help create a better story for the future.

It’s not just at the beginning that we want to know your story; we know they evolve and take new paths. We strive to get regular updates. If you have lots to share, we’d love to hear it (314-448-4023)!

We’re looking forward to hearing your latest update!

As we launch full-speed into 2014, we are all bombarded with predictions about the future. Again. And again. Our fans know we’re not big on predictions—particularly any related to the economy and the stock market—because we know that we’re better off focusing our energy on a well thought-out plan, sticking to it, and taking the long view.

To borrow from one of our favorite authors and speakers, Seth Godin, you might describe our approach to investing as “resilient.” Read his post for yourself and see if you concur. Remain resilient!