Popularity Contest
Over the last month or so I’ve become pretty popular. Let me explain:
Popular Post #1
The first instance of popularity came about a month ago when I was thinking about Nvidia stock and it’s unprecedented rise to (briefly) become the most valuable company in the world. As I often do, I decided to crystalize some of my thoughts on the stock in the Notes app on my phone and, ultimately, decided to share it to LinkedIn.
Here’s what I wrote:
Here’s the post (Also, if feel free to connect with me while you’re there).
With Nvidia being the “it” stock of the moment, the post quickly gathered momentum as folks commented about their own experiences with concentrated individual stock positions. In a few days the post received nearly 40,000 views.
The main thing I hope people took away was the second-to-last sentence: “…this isn’t about the future performance of an investment, it’s about the future layout of your life.”
Said differently, what you want and need should be the driver of investment strategy. Once you have enough for those wants and needs, don’t take risk you don’t have to.
Popular Post #2:
While the Nvidia post on LinkedIn had a lot of reach (40k views), it wasn’t much compared to my X.com (formerly Twitter) post on July 8th.
If you have trouble seeing the actual post above, here’s what it said:
“Just wrapped a client meeting.
Female.
73 and healthy.
2 adult kids (age 42 and 47).
13 year old grandson.
Plenty of money for her comfortable retirement.
The conversation was mostly focused on estate planning and encouraging her to feel okay giving money to her adult kids.
Here’s what I said to her:
”Think about life 20 years from now. You’re 93... Your kids are in their 60s and your grandson is 33.
Then they’ll inherit your money. However, at that time everyone is fairly settled into who they are and what they’ll become.
Now compare that with a gift today.
Your kids are at a place in their lives where a financial gift can have a trajectory-altering impact. Consider the ripple effects of removing a bit of financial stress from the parents of a 13 year old.
I’ll help ensure your needs are met for the rest of your life, but if you see an opportunity to help the people who matter to you, seize it.””
It wasn’t long before this post went totally viral.
11 million views
66 thousand likes
1,700 comments
…And a request from Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal for an interview with yours truly. I only ended up speaking with the Wall Street Journal (Marketwatch), you can read the brief article here.
I think that post went viral for two main reasons:
With housing affordability at an all-time low (home prices are up and so are interest rates) and inflation at a four decade high, the younger generation feels like they can’t get ahead.
The older generation wants to help but there is a lot of fear about navigating future healthcare costs. After all, once funds are given away they can’t be recalled.
To be clear, every family is different and there’s no right or wrong amount to give or not give. Adult children have different personalities and relationships with money — and we aren’t here to suggest you should or should not give. Instead, our role is to provide specific tactics around giving if that’s a priority (and this goes for giving to charity as well), and if it’s not, that’s okay too. Every situation is custom — and that’s why we’ll never have more than 50 clients per employee in our firm. We have to keep the number of relationships limited so we know everyone well.
Concluding thoughts
When that X.com post went totally nuclear our website became flooded with visitors seeking advice — we are always glad to lend some time to offer informal recommendations but, frankly, we’re not built like a drive-thru restaurant that can spit out value meals at scale. We want to be more like the local spot where they know what you like, remember the name of your dog/kids/or whatever, and are willing to adapt the menu to meet your specific tastes.
Good financial advice respects the nuance of different circumstances. We think this is what makes boutique wealth management firms like ours a more competitive offering than gigantic Wall Street firms. We hope you see that as well.
That’s all for today.
Onward,
Adam Harding
Advisor | Founder @ Harding Wealth | D List Celebrity
*For informational purposes only, not to be considered investment advice.
