E56: Second Quarter 2025 Client Letter - The Waiting Edition

The waiting is the hardest part. Every day you see one more card. You take it on faith. You take it to the heart. But the waiting is the hardest part. The waiting Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. This podcast is brought to you by Ginsler Wealth. The information discussed today is meant to be general in nature and not tailored to your specific investing circumstances. This means that you should talk to your regular Gensler wealth advisor or your own advisor before acting on any information we discuss today. Nothing in this podcast is intended to be a solicitation, and past performance does not guarantee future returns. I've already made you wait long enough, so let's go. Hi everybody. This is this is my reading of the second quarter July 2025 or should I say June 30th quarter end client Update. I call this the Waiting Edition. Maybe you figure that out from the lyrics that I quoted right at the beginning. So as I say, let's go to Gensler Wells clients in mid-2018, while I was at a previous investment firm, I met with a prospective client referred by one of my favorite accountants for context. The markets using the US S&P 500 as a proxy for equities had staged a dramatic recovery since the 2009 lows following the global financial crisis that spanned from late 2007 through 2009. From its folkloric low of 66 6.79 666 0.79 in March 2009, the index had climbed to around 2700 by mid-2018, an increase of more than 300% or over 16% annualized, and that excludes dividends by the way. After I explained why it was a good time to invest with us, I will never forget his response. I'm waiting until there is blood in the streets. So sure was he that the end was nigh. I've not been in touch with that prospect since, but I think about him often. Just a few months after that meeting, the index started to fall and by December 24, 2018 was down almost 20% from its high, but end of the year down only about 6%. Hardly blood in the streets. Barely five months later the index was back at all time highs. In my letter you will see a couple if you go online ginslerwealth.com you can find the version of this letter online. You can see all the charts and graphs and pictures and all that stuff, including all the footnotes. As always, I leave those for you to read yourself, but the chart will show the decline that I mentioned from June 30th of 2018 down to sort of the end of December of 2018 and then a very quick rise back up after that. The market continued to hit all time highs through February 2020 when a global pandemic completely shocked the markets. The S&P 500 fell 34% in 23 trading days. Now that was a blood in the streets moment. But was he bold enough to dive in when we were all locked in our houses worrying about how we were going to get our next roll of toilet paper? I doubt it. Three days later the market was up 18% and yet again, barely five months later, still in the depths of COVID the markets hit another all time high. And again we have similar charts showing what I've just described. You get the point. Since then we have seen more market drama. A tough 2022 with a gradual 25% decline followed by a recovery to new all time highs in late 2023. Just this past quarter we experienced the Trump induced market shock when The S&P 500 fell 18% in a few days and culminated with the US dropping 30,000 pound bombs on Iran. This led to, you guessed it, the market reaching yet another all time high on June 30. The island of doubt. It's like the taste of medicine. Working by hindsight Got the message from the oxygen Making a list. Find the cost of opportunity. Doing it right. Facts are useful in emergencies. I'm still waiting. I'm still waiting. Repeat 13 times and fade out. I won't torture you with that. That's cross eyed and painless by the talking heads. When we zoom out on this story, it becomes clear. While waiting for blood in the streets, the market rose 156% including dividends, delivering 14.4% per year. By waiting for the perfect entry point, you missed a powerful eight years of compounding. Tom Petty was right, the waiting is the hardest part. And you can see the chart of what I've described in there. You don't need more time, you just need to invest. If you've been reading my letters, this theme should sound familiar. I touched on it in my last quarterly letter, Warren Buffett edition, where I described markets climbing the ever present wall of worry. So why revisit it again just three months later? Because this quarter's letter is a reminder. Our investment approach and what we do for you every day is designed to get capital working quickly and to stay invested through inevitable market turbulence. Your Gensler wealth portfolios aren't just invested in the market. They're built across multiple geographies. Canada, U.S. international emerging markets, a variety of investment styles, value growth, concentrated and more, and a broad range of asset classes, fixed income alternatives, real estate, private equity, venture capital, etc. While keeping your portfolios essentially fully invested. We tactically shift to asset classes and or strategies that we believe have the opportunity to protect capital or perform strongly, often both based on the prevailing market environment. During the past quarter, we added a unique quantitative based fixed income strategy to our roster with a strong historical track record of accomplishing both goals mentioned above. We have also committed to investing in the latest venture fund from one of the world's best AI focused venture capital investors. More on AI later As my former Canoe instructor, now world renowned leadership and marketing guru Seth Godin says, you don't need more time, you just need to decide. For investors who may be still waiting, I would adapt that to you don't need more time, you just need to invest what you've been waiting for. Housekeeping Items I usually save the housekeeping items for the end of these letters, but but this quarter a few updates are important enough that I didn't want to keep you waiting. While others are just realizing the power of AI, we've been focused on it for years. For a refresher, I recommend my January 2023 interview with Jordan Jacobs, founder and Managing Partner at Radical Ventures. We believe AI is not just another trend, it's likely the most transformative force of our lifetimes. This summer the unlimited podcast will feature a series of interviews with an AI theme, including my recent interview with entrepreneur Michael Hyatt and a follow up interview with Jordan two and a half years after the original. You don't want to miss these At Gensler wealth, we're already using AI in our day to day operations. In my view, if a business is still waiting to engage with AI, they're already behind. And to take it a step further, I've personally spent considerable time building and training a conversational AI version of myself, complete with memory of everything we've published since day one we call it. Or me I guess Ginsler AI. Try it out. It's a quick way to tap into how we think and what we do. No scrolling required. If you're on the website and in the letter there'll be a link to Ginsler AI. It's pretty straightforward. Just literally go to Ginsler AI on in your browser and you can get there. Or go to our website and right up front you'll see the link or the icon to interact with me. On Gensler AI. You can chat with it, you can speak to it to me, whatever you want to call it. And it is pretty remarkable I must say. Client Portal is Live Our Ginsler wealth client portal, including mobile app, is now being rolled out to clients in waves. If you have not already received your activation email, please look out for the next week or so. Going forward, we will deliver your monthly and quarterly reports via the secure portal. Apologies to folks who aren't clients. That's useless to you, but we're very proud and excited about our new portal. It looks like a 2025 nice technology, mobile app, etc. So we're very pleased and very happy with it. Family Office Associate Wanted as our firm continues to grow, we are looking to add a key team member, a family office associate to work with our clients and provide holistic wealth, financial planning and investment services. The ideal candidate will likely have an accounting CPA or financial planning CFP designation. Most importantly, we need someone with a huge passion for helping families with their financial affairs. If that passion is there, I can train them in the Ginser wealth way. We have had some great interest, but I'm still searching for the best fit, so I'm enlisting your help. Full details of the opportunity can be found on the website here by clicking the link. If you're on our website or find us on LinkedIn and you can find the job posting by finding our company profile there, I would really appreciate you sharing with your own networks. I may be biased, but I generally believe there's no better place to build a meaningful career and make a real difference than here at Gensler Wealth Reminder Private X Account for clients earlier in 2024, we launched at Ginslerwealth X, a private X formerly Twitter account exclusively for clients and close friends of the firm. While we remain active on public social media platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, our Public X account, and the unlimited podcast which you're listening to right now, this private channel lets us share more candid thoughts, ideas and firm updates without overloading your inbox. If you're not yet following, what are you waiting for? Request access and we'll let you in. Note Followers can see one another. Think of it as the only thing limited as about your Gensler wealth experience. With all this emphasis on action, you might think that we've tossed patience aside. But actually, in investing, patience is what matters most. After you act more on that in a future letter. Speaking of patience, now that Canada Day has passed, the long wait for the Canadian summer is over. Wishing you a wonderful summer filled with life's most important investments. Your family, your friends, and experiences that create lasting memories. Those definitely can't wait. Thank you for your continued trust, support and confidence. The AI hasn't replaced the real humans at Gensler wealth yet. We are still available 247 should you need us. Sincerely, me, Brian Gensler, President and CEO so that's my quarterly letter for the second quarter of 2025. As I mentioned just a few moments ago, you're listening to the Unlimited Podcast, so that's a first start. This summer we will have a little bit of an AI focused theme with what's going on in the world with AI. You don't want to miss these. So get ready and we'll talk to you soon. Have a great summer everyone. Bye bye. The Unlimited Podcast is hosted and produced by by Brian Ginsler and is edited and mixed by myself, David McMillan. This podcast is not to be taken as investment advice. If you like what you heard, don't forget to rate the podcast and follow us on Social medianslerwealth. Thanks for listening and see you next time. Sam.