The Lowry Letter®

Week of 9/15/2020

Finally, please mark your calendars for our next online client event, to be held October 8^th. We will discuss investing & elections with commentary from American Funds. We will hold it twice that day, noon and 6pm, to accommodate different schedules.

More information to follow.

We thought: you might be interested in a little look “under the hood” of Lowry Financial Advisors. We think it is important to hold regular meetings with specific purposes. Generally, these are the only times during working hours that our phone might not be answered by a human.
Each week we hold a Monday Morning Meeting where we review the appointments and conversations we’ve had with you in the past week and what is planned for the upcoming week. We dictate notes from meetings and conversations so that the team is on the same page.
On Friday we hold our Friday Follow-Thru so that any tasks from the week can be closed out or so that we can prepare for the upcoming week
Once a month we hold a Monthly Focus Meeting. During this time, we review projects and events or special initiatives that are coming up. This might include our upcoming webinar or the status of required distributions from IRA accounts
Twice a year we hold our Semiannual Strategy Meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to look ahead and plan for the future. We review whether there are gaps in the services we provide or the tools we are using

We enjoy these opportunities to improve our practice and keep a focus on improving how we serve you. These are open forums where any member of our team can provide ideas or critiques of what we are doing. We also play a game on occasion, because we enjoy each other’s company and it promotes good team culture

We learned: that housing demand continues to be strong. According to the National Association of Realtors, there were 21% fewer homes on the market at the end of July 2020 than at the end of July 2019. It’s a difference of 400,000 homes!

We think: it’s a good time to provide some cybersecurity reminders.
You will not be contacted by government agencies, such as the IRS, by telephone or email. They will use mailed correspondence for any official inquiries or actions. Do not provide any information to callers claiming to represent them.
Do not provide usernames or passwords to anyone who calls you, or in response to unsolicited emails. Any reputable caller will not need that information from you.
If something seems fishy or too good to be true, please give us a call. We see many of these cases and are glad to provide a second look.

We read: about the process of assigning names to tropical storms and hurricanes. The large number of storms this year may mean that a dip into the Greek alphabet.

We've enjoyed: this look at aerodynamics in cycling. The video of the “superman” rider is really something.

We recommend: this recipe for cooking a Texas-style brisket. Joe Jr. smoked his first brisket over Labor Day weekend and this was a helpful guide for the 17-hour process.

Ask the Joes® returns next week!