Last week, I had the opportunity to travel to New York City to conduct due diligence on Selected American Shares (SLASX), one of the funds we own for our clients.  I met with co-managers Chris Davis and Ken Feinberg to discuss the intricacies of the fund.  While a majority of our time together was spent delving deeper into the Fund itself (which gentle reader, you might find quite boring), I wanted to pass on a few nuggets of wisdom from Chris and Ken about investing in general.  (In no particular order.)

  • Predicting when things will get better is worthless, no one knows.  Its better to stay the course, the rewards will come in due time.
  • Long term, investing in equities is the best choice as you are an owner of a company, you own a piece of GDP.
  • Getting out until things get better is disastrous.  Timing the market never works.  Market recoveries tend to be front end loaded, and if you’re in cash, you may miss the opportunity.
  • Global vs. Domestic distinction will soon disappear as global becomes the norm.
  • 45% of S&P 500 earnings are derived from outside the U.S.
  • China will continue to buy our treasuries if we continue to buy their goods.  (How many ‘Made In China’ labels are on your household goods?)
  • Future opportunities: solar energy, globally dominant businesses, beneficiaries of crisis, energy, commodities, agriculture.

Ultimately, I took over 5 pages of notes and remain confident in their Fund for the long term.  I only mention the few things above to give some general thoughts they had regarding investing.

~Tony

PS: My wife traveled with me to NYC and we had a great time exploring the city.  Should you ever find yourself there, we’d certainly recommend doing the Gray Line New York bus tour (we did the Downtown Loop), where we saw Central Park, Times Square, Ground Zero, Wall Street, and many other things.  We also had a fabulous dinner at Anthos, which we’d highly recommend.

Sources:  www.selectedshares.com, www.wikipedia.com

Disclaimer: Some clients of Freedom Financial Solutions, LLC and/or Tony Hixon’s family accounts own shares of SLASX.