The Lowry Letter®

We do enjoy Halloween, and hope that everyone has a safe and enjoyable experience. Fortunately, we would say that this year has had more treats than tricks (speaking of the market of course).

The fourth quarter is the ideal time to clean up. This includes making sure that required minimum distributions are completed and charitable contributions have been provided for. Please let us know if you have any questions about taking care of any of those items.

We’ve ordered our 2020 pocket calendars and would like to know who would like to receive one. More of you have transitioned to electronic calendars, so it is a little harder to gauge demand. Just let us know if you are interested and we will send them along!

We're going to shed our normal format this week to hit some quick points and takeaways from our time at Commonwealth's national conference.

We continue to hear of various phone and email scams. The persistence of the IRS scam in particular is troubling. Like most criminal endeavors, the goal is to catch us at a bad time, or on a bad day, and take advantage of that to extract the information criminals need.

As a rule, never provide information directly to someone who calls you. If you think the call may be legitimate, request a callback number and then verify that number directly with the actual entity in question. If the matter is actually that important, it can wait for this additional security check.

Fall has arrived, though for some of us little has changed. As we look forward (anxiously) to cooler weather, we will brave the heat to address item #2.

This week we head to Colorado for Commonwealth's annual conference. It's a great opportunity to gather some beneficial information and education and we look forward to sharing some of the highlights.

The end of the 3^rd Quarter is upon us, and it is hard to believe that so much of 2019 has come and gone! We hope you enjoy this week’s edition.

This week finds the Joes® in Gainesville, looking forward to another year of sponsoring the September Membership Lunch of the Builders Association of North Central Florida. The Joes® family was involved in the building industry for several generations, as was Cale’s. We’re proud to support this group of small businesses that play an important role in our community.

In other important news, last week we mentioned our love for the Z-Man sandwich. We are pleased to report that our memory of the blessed creation was accurate. It is among the world’s perfect sandwiches. We also had another memorable experience (see item 4).

August was a turbulent month for the markets, and we invite you to read our monthly market recap for more information.

We share the relief of many Floridians that Hurricane Dorian left Florida largely unscathed. As the damage in the Carolinas is assessed, and the dreadful situation in parts of the Bahamas continue, we are reminded of how risk affects our lives. More on this below.

As we prepared this week’s edition, we were watching the path of Hurricane Dorian. Thanks to modern technology, we have the ability to work away from the office when necessary. We also appreciate our relationship with Commonwealth. In the event that weather interrupts our normal office operations, important requests can always be made directly to Commonwealth by calling 800-237-0081 and speaking with the Service Center. 

We hope that you have a great week and an enjoyable Labor Day weekend! Our office, and the markets, will be closed on Monday, September 2nd in observance of the holiday.