Over the last several months, my Calgary wealth management firm hosted a webinar series titled, Financial Wellness During a Pandemic. Throughout the course of the series, I featured guests from five investment firms. Each firm had a different philosophy and process for choosing which stocks and bonds to include in their investment portfolio. 

At the Susan O’Brien Group, it’s up to my team and I to construct portfolios of unrelated investment managers to meet our specific clients’ objectives while minimizing risk. I designed the series to help our clients increase their financial confidence during a pandemic. 

Here are my five key takeaways from the series:

1.  Process counts. 

It’s not the time during a pandemic, or at any moment of extreme volatility in the market, to make reactive decisions. Every manager continued to stick with their process and never deviated from it. The best time to fix your boat is not in the middle of a storm. 

2  Research is key. 

Each manager had a number of research methods. This included artificial intelligence, research on management teams, supplier and customer visits and proprietary tools. Combined into the right portfolio through the Susan O’Brien Group, the right manager combination can become a powerhouse for decreasing risk and protecting portfolio values during a pandemic. Do-it-yourself or concentrated positions could sink your wealth in a pandemic. 

3. Experience matters.

As a veteran of 22 years protecting and growing people’s wealth, I know that with each market correction and each pandemic that I have seen it all before. I can with certainty feel confident that portfolios are positioned before a pandemic to withstand market corrections. Each manager I hosted also positioned their investments with the same care before a market crisis occurred to create resilient portfolios. 

4.  Transparency is crucial.

Understanding the process and the reasons for holding a particular position in a portfolio are key to financial confidence. Each manager fully knew their reasons for adding a new stock or bond, adding to an existing holding or selling. In many cases, managers are following companies for years. This includes companies that make it into the portfolio and those that don’t. You just can’t access that kind of information in an ETF or mutual fund. 

5. Financial confidence increases with knowledge. 

The comments after each manager session I hosted included feedback that people’s confidence had increased. They more fully understood my process and they understood that their financial affairs were being handled with the utmost care and attention by the Susan O’Brien Group. 

Stay tuned for upcoming webinars to further support and increase your financial confidence. If you’d like to learn more about how I can create a long-term, integrated financial plan for you by using a Net Worth Thinking Lens, contact me today.