State of the Company
I hope this commentary finds you doing well as we all get settled into the new year. All the CIS staff is doing great and fortunately no one has gotten the coronavirus yet. We continue to be extremely careful by socially distancing ourselves from each other and fully utilizing online technologies to conduct business as well as for client reviews and prospective clients.
I am happy to report that God blessed Christian Financial Advisors® in 2020 with a historical year of growth as people from across the nation adopted the new way of doing business utilizing internet technology with online face-to-face meetings. With acceptance of this technology, distance from a financial advisor is quickly becoming a non-issue for doing business. It doesn’t matter if you’re a mile away or several thousand miles away. This helped CIS grow beyond anything we thought possible as people from across the Nation searched online for a Christian Financial Advisory firm to serve them. I also attribute the success to our podcast, Christian Financial Perspectives, now at 92 episodes, with thousands of listeners weekly from across the nation helping further spur the growth of CIS. I get calls from people thousands of miles away all the time about how much they love the podcast. Stay tuned for the new Christian Financial Perspectives VLOG (Video Blog) coming soon to YouTube and other online video platforms.
Market Commentary
THE PAST
All of our Biblically Responsible, Values-Based managed portfolios did very well last year, and I believe this is due to constantly staying in front of the markets making small changes many times throughout the year to keep the portfolios as finely turned as possible. A few of the best moves we made were buying into the energy and industrial sectors 3-4 months ago when they were totally out of favor in the markets which has already resulted in nice gains for the portfolios and injecting cash in the markets when they were experiencing lows in March and April from what I believe was an overreaction to the coronavirus. Technology also spurred a lot of growth in the portfolios but we recently lowered exposure to this sector about a month ago as we saw it becoming overheated, similar to 1999, possibly even more so now.
THE FUTURE
I’ve received many calls over the last few weeks concerning our new Democratic President’s agenda and how this could affect the markets, especially now with complete democratic control of the house and senate. Please see the chart after this commentary showing what the markets have done historically during democratic control. It may surprise you.
With the new Biden administration taking over soon, I believe many, if not all, of the tariffs put on Chinese goods by Trump could be lifted as well as opening up free trade with many other countries similar to what happened during the Obama-era. Add on top of this, the possibility of higher corporate taxes on American-based companies could push the ones that returned during the Trump-era to move back offshore. This could result in returning to a strong international economy. We have begun the process to take advantage of these possibilities
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to respond to this email or call the office to speak with me personally. The views expressed represent my opinion. These views are subject to change and are not intended as a forecast or guarantee of future results. This material is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice and is not intended as an endorsement of any specific investment. Please understand that past performance is no guarantee of future performance, and I cannot control what the markets will do in the future. Corrections in the markets are normal and necessary and can happen at any time without notice and are beyond anyone’s control. Statements of future expectations, estimates, projections, and other forward-looking statements are based on available information and my view as of the time of these statements. Therefore we believe it is so important that you always have a complete financial strategy with enough in cash reserves, or some funds in a conservative strategy with minimal or no exposure to the equity markets, to withstand potential downturns as they are a normal part of market cycles.
Here to serve,
BOB BARBER
Senior Portfolio Manager and Wealth Advisor, 36 years of experience
Ecclesiastes 11:2 – Divide your portion to seven, or even to eight, for you do not know what misfortune may occur on the earth.
