Weekly Notes

May 1 — “The Robots Aren’t Coming for Your Job” - Despite widespread fears about AI destroying the job market, history suggests that when technology makes professional work cheaper and faster, demand for those services tends to grow, not shrink.

May 8 — “Structured Products and the Appeal of Complexity” - Wall Street has a talent for packaging complicated, fee-laden investments into pitches that sound too good to pass up. Structured notes are a prime example of how added complexity almost always benefits the seller more than the buyer.

May 15 — “The Tax Tail Wagging the Portfolio Dog” - There are more tax-deferral strategies available today than ever before, but the history of tax shelters is also a history of investors who lost sight of the underlying investment. Low-cost fundamentals like loss harvesting and asset location remain the most reliable tools.

May 22 — “Our Instincts Are Terrible at Math” - Humans consistently underestimate the power of compounding. The penny-doubling problem, paper-folding to the moon, and 76 years of S&P 500 returns all tell the same story: time is the most powerful variable in investing, and interrupting compounding is costly.

May 29 — “Lessons From the Greatest Investor You’ve Never Heard Of” - Herbert Wertheim built a multi-billion-dollar fortune not through Wall Street connections or complex strategies, but through decades of disciplined buy-and-hold investing. The real lesson is the behavior, not the stock picks.

Quote We Love

“The first rule of compounding: Never interrupt it unnecessarily.” — Charlie Munger

Media Features

Crystal McKeon was quoted in a MarketWatch article on the truth behind tax-friendly retirement states, examining whether the tax savings from relocating in retirement are as significant as advertised.

Ladies Potting Social

Earlier this month, we hosted a Ladies Potting Social at The Flora Culture. A huge thank you to everyone who joined us.

Weekly Notes

April 3 — “What You’re Trying to Teach and What You’re Actually Teaching” Opening stock trading accounts for kids is more likely to teach bad habits than patience, and competitions judged on strategy quality — rather than portfolio returns — are a better model for financial education.

April 10 — “Vibes & Valuations” Using the anticipated SpaceX IPO as a case study, the post cautions that when retail enthusiasm peaks, even great companies can make for terrible investments.

April 17 — “The Good News Is There. It Just Doesn’t Make Headlines” Strong earnings, normalizing valuations, and the benefits of diversification tell a more optimistic story than the headlines suggest.

April 24 — “Investing While Sad” Despite historic lows in consumer sentiment, widespread pessimism is framed as a bullish signal — markets only need news to be slightly less bad than feared to move higher.

Quote We Love

"In the short run, the market is a voting machine, but in the long run, it is a weighing machine." — Benjamin Graham

Media Features

USA Today quotes Jon Swanburg in an article on free and low-cost financial advice.

ADV Updates

Every year, we update our Form ADV, Client Relationship Summary (CRS), and Privacy Policy. If you would like to view the documents, this link will take you to all of our latest filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Weekly Notes:

March 6 | Iran, Uncertainty, and Why We’re Staying the Course - If you are asking whether to move to cash until the Iran conflict settles. The answer is no. Historically, the S&P 500 is positive 83% of the time in the year following a major geopolitical event — and panic-selling is rarely the right move.

March 13 | The Eternal Promise of Easy Money - Private credit was the hot trade for years — until the blowups started. A reminder that chasing high-return, hard-to-understand investments usually ends the same way, no matter how convincing the story sounds at the time.

March 20 | Everyone Thinks They’ll Get Out in Time - An AI meme coin, a derivatives bet on the Second Coming, and shady micro-cap IPOs walk into a bar. Three stories that illustrate how blurry the line between investing and gambling has become — and why smart people keep ending up on the wrong side of it.

March 27 | The Price Is the Risk - Gold doubled in two years and got labeled a “safe haven.” Then it dropped 20% in three weeks. When an asset surges because people are nervous, the risk isn’t the geopolitics — it’s the price you’re paying to get in.

Quote We Love:

“Investing in an unknowable future as an agnostic is a daunting prospect, but if foreknowledge is elusive, investing as if you know what’s coming is close to nuts.” - Howard Marks

Tax Return Reminder

If you haven't done so already, when you file your tax return, use this link to securely send us a copy. The numbers from the return greatly help with the planning we do on our side.

February 6 | 43% of Stocks Lost Money in a Great Market The S&P 500 nearly doubled over five years — but nearly half of individual U.S. stocks lost money over the same stretch. Disney, Target, and Nike were all in the red. Here’s why that matters for how you’re invested.

February 13 | The Retirement Spending Myth Most Calculators Get Wrong Most retirement calculators assume your spending climbs every year with inflation. Real data says otherwise — and the difference could change how much you think you need to retire.

February 20 | Great Years Still Include Scary Declines The average intra-year drop for the S&P 500 is 14% — even in years that end positive. A look at why the scary moments are part of the plan, not a sign it’s broken.

February 27 | Midterm Volatility Is Right on Schedule Tech is down, tariffs are back, and the headlines feel heavy. But midterm election years have historically been the bumpiest — and most still ended in the green.

Quote We Love:

“Far more money has been lost by investors trying to anticipate corrections than lost in the corrections themselves." — Peter Lynch

Seminar:

February 18 | What 2025 Taught Us — And What It Means for the Year Ahead (Seminar Slides) A data-packed look at what drove markets in 2025 — from the dominance of gold and international stocks, to why staying invested on April 9th made all the difference. Jon covered volatility, Big Tech, earnings, the economy vs. how people feel about it, and what history says about investing in a midterm election year.