Hello
We hope you and your family, friends and communities are safe and taking measures to care for one another
. We are in an unprecedented situation and the only way through this is by staying grounded in the relationships that give us life and connection.
We wanted to send you another update on what's going on for us and what we see ahead.
For now, the Centered Wealth team are working separately and following our local governmental guidelines for reducing the spread of the virus.
Our home office, broker-dealer Vanderbilt Securities in Woodbury, NY, has also switched to working in shifts and remotely. We are all working together through this transition to keep things running smoothly.
If you have requests that need to be made (such as IRA contributions), please try to think ahead and not leave things to the last minute. We will do our best, as always, to get things done quickly, but there are many steps involved in even seemingly simple tasks. Due to the decentralized work environment we find ourselves in, things may take just a little longer than usual. We appreciate your help with this.
We are available by phone and by Zoom meeting.
For the time being, please do not plan on coming to either of our offices (Minneapolis or Fairfield). If you have an in-person appointment currently scheduled, we will reach out with digital meeting instructions as appropriate.
We are watching the markets carefully
and are very pleased to see multiple countries are coordinating economic safeguards for both our banking industries and for individuals being impacted by the shelter-in-place mandates. This doesn't mean we will stop the market falling or quickly be back to normal, but we are hoping this will ease the worst real world economic impacts.
The key to weathering a major market upheaval is to not sell during the downturn
unless absolutely necessary, and be invested during the upturn. So in the weeks (and perhaps months) ahead we will be looking for the right time/place to rebalance portfolios looking to the next market cycle. This overall rebalancing will not happen until we see the peak of infection in the US, which we expect over the next month but which could be pushed out for a few months if the bell curve on infection has been flattened.
Eventually, the silver-lining
may be another shift in how we look at the role of the economy on individual and collective well-being. After 2008, we saw a surge in the movement to use banking and investing to make the world a better place. We are hoping that this crisis will allow this movement to gain more momentum and eventually investing will be seen as a critical lever for directing corporations to act in the best interest of both people and the planet.
If you have specific questions about what this means for you, please reach out.
Again, we want to thank you for your trust and patience. Please be kind to yourselves, your families and your communities.
In solidarity,
Jina, Stuart, Annalisa & Anya
