I first met Evie on the phone. It was 1986 and I had just licensed as a stockbroker. That is what we were in the 1980s before the title changed to financial advisor. Evie answered the phone and connected me to Ethyl. Ethyl told me she was so old she did not buy green bananas. She was in her 80s and she was mentally sharp. I had cold called with municipal bonds, and she had purchased several from me.

Evie was Ethly’s assistant. From what I understood Evie essentially ran several of the companies that Ethly owned. Evie understood business and knew the markets had ups and downs.

On October 19, 1987, Black Monday, the stock market dropped over 22%. (Imagine if the DOW dropped 9,000 points today. That was what October 19 was like. I remember a mutual fund wholesaler that came to the office and said $ 1 trillion had dropped out of the market. He claimed we would be able to go into Nordstrom that would be so empty that you could hear a pin drop. That was the fear that seemed to grip so many.

I called Evie and Ethyl a couple of days later with the idea of telling her about some attractive municipal bonds. Ethyl’s response, her first question was this: “Shouldn’t we be buying stocks?”

 

Ethyl and Evie understood the concept of “buy low” which meant to buy when the stock market was down. They were ready to buy when most everyone was fearful and sell when everyone was greedy.

For Evie’s birthday and Christmas Ethyl would give her 100 shares of stock. Ethyl gave stock to her nurses and others as well. For over 10 years Ethyl gifted stock to people around her and continued doing that until she passed away in 1997. Of all the people Ethyl gave stock only Evie held onto the stock. The others sold within a few years.

Evie held on to her stocks. Over the years we would sell a few and buy others. Some of the stocks currently in her portfolio were originally purchased in the 1990s. She had two individual accounts for over 20 years. The two were combined in 2014.

This is how her account has performed over the last 15 years. But it all began in 1992 through 1994 with about $93,200. That $93,200 has grown to almost $4 million.

You can see that it has not been a straight up year after year increase. The stock market has its ups and downs and so do our portfolios. Our goal is to see the graph begin in the lower left-hand corner and end in the upper right-hand corner. We know there will be periodic losses, setbacks, and unexpected occurrences. Calamitous drops do not scare us out of the market.

 

When we say we have a passion for creating wealth, it is not just talk. This is one of the case studies showing we walk the talk. If you have been reading these newsletters you have seen a number of case studies of clients who do not accept average or mediocre. Do you?

 

How does your account compare?