The Lowry Letter®

For those of you who missed our webinar last week, the link to the replay is below.

We were reminded this week of the prevalence of identity theft. One of our clients had fraudulent accounts opened at a credit union and an online brokerage. They were alerted of the accounts being opened by confirmation letters that were sent to their home.

It’s a good reminder to pay attention to your mail, including things that seem like run-of-the-mill solicitations. Fortunately, in both cases the fraud departments of the institutions were alerted and (as far as we know) have dealt with the issue.

We are very close to the 2-year anniversary of one of the key inflection points in the beginning of the pandemic - on March 11, 2020, the NBA suspended its season due to COVID-19. We were at a conference in New Orleans and remember the uncertainty about what it would mean for the future.

If current events reinforce anything, it is that uncertainty is a feature, not a bug. The ban on Russian oil imports will affect energy prices around the world. How much and for how long? We had the same questions about COVID-19’s persistence. Hopefully, the war in Ukraine is not with us as long.

We hope you will join us next Thursday, March 10^th, at 5pm for a live “Ask the Joes® (and Cale)” about the state of the markets and other current events. You can register here:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_K3FJcFoiTYuMsJPvjF5Dog

If you think it would interest any of your friends, you may share the link.

We don’t know the exact origin of the saying, but “Things are never as good (or as bad) as they seem,” is as correct today as ever.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is deeply distressing. We’re going to review the financial implications but can’t ignore the sadness we feel for the loss of life and health that is resulting.

We’ve seen more downward movement in the market in response to the conflict and expect volatility to continue. Oil prices will continue to be impacted, and this will further impact inflation, an ongoing domestic concern. US producers have already started to ramp up production.

The direct impact on financial markets will likely be small, speaking of the effect on earnings and other related measurements of economic activity. As Brad McMillan explains, for the conflict to sink the markets in a meaningful way, earnings would have to be affected. Economic fundamentals remain strong.

As with previous periods of uncertainty, focusing on your specific goals and situation is most important.

Russia may invade Ukraine and there is uncertainty about the direction of interest rates in the United States. In other words, uncertainty is still part of an investor’s daily experience.

Remaining diversified and focused on your specific goals and situation is still the best course for long-term investors.

Remember last week’s letter, when we predicted that the Friday jobs report would be bad? Well, it wasn’t. As Brad McMillan shares, it wasn’t a bad thing to be wrong about. He surmises that companies are paying workers even when in required quarantine, for fear of losing them. Also, stronger gains were seen in service sectors than in good-producers.

Welcome to February - we’re keeping it short and sweet this week!

This week sees more market turbulence. For some perspective on the current situation, Brad McMillan has recent posts that provide clarity.

We often say that your personal economy is even more important than the real economy. In other words, your needs should define your investment proposal, rather than them being designed by external factors. This continues to be true during market corrections and other periods of uncertainty.

Each residential U.S. address can order 4 at-home Covid tests from this address: https://special.usps.com/testkits

Many areas of the United States are seeing potential peaks in the Omicron wave. It seems like everyone you know has either tested positive or has someone in their household who has. Two years into the pandemic, we are more likely to catch Covid though less likely to get very sick (if vaccinated). Testing continues to be a useful tool, and something that should have been easier to do, at home, from the beginning.

This seems to be the week when everyone got Covid-19 (or when everyone you know did). Local schools continue to deal with many absences (student AND teacher) and most people are trying to figure out what the right quarantine protocol is. As we wrote about last week, we will see if the United States follows similar patterns of quickly declining cases seen in other countries.

In the meantime, we do our best to manage. We think this op-ed by philosopher Agnes Callard is worth your time: Covid makes us want to see the future. Too bad we’re not good at it.