My Guitar Gently Weeps
The same trust that we carefully hold with regard to your invested wealth, we also hold with regard to your wealth of information.
Dear Clients:
I hope you are well here in early 2022. Since the beginning of the year, markets have been skittish with rising geopolitical tensions in eastern Europe, generally higher interest rates, generally elevated asset valuations, and ongoing substantially higher global inflation pressures. The Russell 3000, which measures the entire U.S. stock market, is down approximately 10% YTD, and the tech-heavy NASDAQ QQQ index is down 15% YTD. In contrast, Berkshire Hathaway stock, a good proxy for conservative value investors, is up about 4%. Short term inflation protected bonds are down about 1%, while the broad U.S. bond market is down about 3%.
That’s a lot of “down” to start 2022, but anyone who has read my recent letters or attended our recent conference will not be surprised, as I have expressed my cautious outlook for many months. A big surprise downer, however, was the recent theft from my truck of the electric guitar I have owned and played since I was about 15 years old. I shouldn’t have left the guitar in my vehicle, but the person who took it should not have taken it. I hope that, somehow, some day, it will be returned.
Several people have suggested that I search local pawn shops and I expect that I will take some action of that kind. However, I regret to say that I never bothered to take down the serial number of the guitar, and I expect that will hinder any search. In the days since the theft, I have entered full scale inventory mode, and I am photographing and logging our family’s valuable items into New Capital’s groundbreaking client information system, NCM360, so that if I ever again need such information - and I hope it will only be for happier reasons - I will be able to find it at my fingertips.
NCM360 enables our clients to maintain full data - descriptions, histories, documents, attributes - on a huge variety of elements. NCM360 can maintain details on your real estate holdings, incorporated entities, trusts, household and valuable items, vehicles, insurance policies, loans and liabilities, health items, and more. This information is entrusted to the same entity, New Capital, to which you entrust your wealth. The same trust that we carefully hold with regard to your invested wealth, we also hold with regard to your wealth of information. We share your data with no one, ever, and we store it on a system built on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform.
You may wish to enter some of your own data, and we are also able to help you get organized and help enter your data onto the NCM360 system. If you are like me, you have things in different places. Since we built the system, I have been locating and entering real estate deeds, receipts, insurance policies, vehicle title and maintenance records, health records, appliance warranties, personal ID’s, and much more. On numerous occasions, I have been able to turn to NCM360 when I have needed information, including the other day when a Houston Police officer asked me details about my guitar and my truck, and I was able to send it all to him without leaving my desk.
Over the past several months, Catherine Bahr has held orientation meetings for NCM360 directly with clients to introduce them and get them started. If you have not yet done so, I highly recommend signing up to meet with Catherine to begin your journey toward the ultimate in personal information organization.
You will be glad you did, even if the day comes, and I hope it never does, when you need to quickly find and provide information about something very dear to you that has gone missing.
Leonard Golub, CFA
Fiduciary Financial Advisor