Independence Day

Hope you had a wonderful Independence Day weekend!

All the ingredients for a fabulous summer weekend were in order including wonderful weather, lots of family time, barbecues, and fireworks. All “safely” accomplished.

Now just a few days after the celebratory Independence Day afterglow dims, dismal news brings on the realities of today, contrasting our weekend’s appreciation of Americana and all that is wonderful about our country.

Watching and reading the news one might start to despair because this great country is being vilified in many different ways, with many stories portraying part of our country’s conscious moving in unappealing directions. Domestic turbulence, protests, increasing numbers of Covid-19, millions of people unemployed, entire industries floundering, stock market crash and recovery, add the toxic politics, civic disagreements, and public dissension, all leads to uncertainty about our future.

One witty remark on social media suggests we push the ‘restart’ button this year by turning 2020 off and then click it back on again, sort of a reset!

Yes, I really like that idea….

Unfortunately, there may be no resetting certain occurrences to the way they once were.

Traditional customs and many consumer behaviors have already begun to shift — online shopping, grocery delivery, streamed entertainment, tele-medicine and tele-education all went from a good idea to a necessary adaptation. Unfortunately for movie theaters, malls, rental cars, and concerts, even a gradual return to normal isn’t assured.

Fortunately, in our real America, our beliefs turn into actions. Crisis turns into opportunity. The unexpected catastrophe changes into innovation, and economic trials and tribulations create opportunity.

Each year Barron’s composites life’s list of top performing CEOs based on their performance under crisis. This year their main job of CEO went from capital allocation to crisis management some creating extraordinary outcomes.

Here are just some of their successes:

Mary Bars, CEO of General Motors, her retooling efforts have kept GM in the black, despite production shutdowns.

Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, kept workers on the job, raised their pay, and pledged $1 billion to tackle inequality.

Trisha Griffith, CEO of Progressive, supported employees, rebated customers, fed truckers, and helped the state of Ohio.

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, gave workers raises six months early, met soaring demand for data center chips, and this past week announced a new foray with Mercedes into autonomous driving.

Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom Video Communications, scaled his video conferencing platform to serve millions of socially distant users right at the time of crisis.

We certainly are living in trouble times. Uncertainty is prevalent. Some believe the ability of our county to rise above is in question.

However, our country is filled with hard charging, optimistic workers and leaders, as exampled above, who have strong beliefs that drive their successes forward.

Your team at Woloshin Investment Management believes that hard work, and proper planning, coupled with our optimistic belief in driving our client’s success ever forward is what we strive for every day.

We Are Here For You!

Warmest Regards,

Your friends at Woloshin Investment Management