The Wealth Group – Austin B. Colby & Associates is a Securities and Exchange Commission registered investment advisor. Information presented is for educational purposes only and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any securities, and past performance is not indicative of future results. Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial adviser and/or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed here.
MINNESOTA
14850 SCENIC HEIGHTS RD, STE 100 EDEN PRAIRIE, MN 55344
(952) 937-9423
TENNESSEE
725 COOL SPRINGS BLVD, STE 445 FRANKLIN, TN 37067
(615) 395-8600
VIRTUAL OFFICE NATIONALLY VIA ZOOM
Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and minor in Christian Studies from North Central Universit
“I have always had an interest in personal finance. Having a plan and setting goals for your financial life enables you to accomplish things that otherwise would never be possible. A thousand small steps in the right direction can lead to a life of stability and ability—The Wealth Group exists to help plot that course and keep our clients on track.”
Even as a young adult, keeping her finances in order and planning for the future has allowed Paige to experience wealth as a blessing rather than a stressor. She wants people to know that same freedom, especially when life gets complicated.
I enjoy helping our clients make good decisions with their money. It’s rewarding to watch our clients build wealth with us at their side. When I see a young family cross the $1 million net worth mark — after starting with our team with a net worth of $200,000 — it’s an awesome feeling.
As our clients continue to focus on the things they can control, such as paying down debt and adding money to their investment portfolio year after year, I have noticed that it becomes easier to stomach the (inevitable) bear market. Over my time at The Wealth Group, I have learned that good financial behaviors never go into a recession.
When I’m not at The Wealth Group I enjoy spending time with my wife and three children. Together we like to be outdoors, play sports, and be active participants at our church.
“I am passionate about my work because I think it is important to make wise, informed decisions with our finances as it permeates into all aspects of our lives. Just as people strive to maintain balance in their overall lives, financial wellness and understanding in your personal life is just as important. ”
“I have realized there are so many people in the world today who are unsure of how to save or plan for the future. They live paycheck to paycheck and think debt is normal. We get to help people realize that there’s a different way to live. We get to help people who feel hopeless finally find a clear path for the future while taking control of their finances for the first time. When people are proactive rather than reactive, it’s amazing what can be accomplished.
Karie’s main role is managing the onboarding process for new clients. She works hard to ensure a seamless transition and to make all clients feel welcome and cared for. As the Director of Client Services, she oversees the Client Services team, plans client events, processes monetary transfers, handles paperwork for clients and helps to manage the day-to-day operations of the office.
“I love being able to see and contribute to the confidence in the families we help when they know they are taking the correct steps towards financial independence. I truly enjoy building relationships with people. The work I do with The Wealth Group gives me the opportunity to do this by building a relationship that will last a lifetime.”
Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. owns the certification marks CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER ™, and CFP® in the U.S.
“I love working alongside the people at The Wealth Group. Additionally, my younger brother (and now boss) and I have wanted to work together for years. When the opportunity arose within The Wealth Group I jumped at the chance. I have always had a passion for personal finance and investing; the transition into this investment-focused role was a natural one for me.”
Developing and stress-testing the firm’s asset allocation models is a passion of Adam’s. You may often find him assessing risk metrics for client portfolios and the broader global markets as well as trading and rebalancing client portfolios.
Investments & Wealth Institute TM (The Institute) is the owner of the certification mark “CIMA” and “Certified Investment Management Analyst.” Use of CIMA and/or Certified Investment Management Analyst signifies that the user has successfully completed The Institute’s initial and ongoing credentialing requirements for investment management professional.
From childhood, I was strongly interested in working hard, making money, and most importantly, saving money. Today, I use that passion to empower our clients to succeed with their money. A lot of people experience unnecessary stress and anxiety in their financial lives.
After college, I worked in a large bank and began investing on my own for the first time. I remember plugging numbers into a Roth IRA Calculator and realizing the power of compounding from an early age. I was amazed at how [seemingly] easy investing was…not realizing that bear markets are what make investing challenging. A few years into my career as a financial advisor, the Great Recession (2007-2009) hit, and I gained a lot of crucial experience in a short period.
Those lessons from the Great Recession will stick with me for the rest of my life. I learned not to over-extend myself on real estate, to never sell out of stocks during a bear market, the power of being 100% debt-free (including no mortgage), and also the opportunities in stocks that arise from the ashes of a deep bear market.
Proverbs 11:14 says, “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” We aim to be those counselors that provide knowledge and safety for our clients.
A good financial advisor should have the heart of a teacher. Through our relationship, we aim for our clients to grow in knowledge and mastery over their finances. We want them to be the driver of their financial plan, with us as their sidekick/coach to help them realize their plans and goals.
I have been quoted as a financial expert in Fox Business, U.S. News & World Report, Yahoo! News, GOBanking Rates, Lifehacker, and Business Insider.
More important than my role at The Wealth Group is my position as a redeemed son of God, husband to Krista, and father to five children.
“I want people to succeed at life and that includes guiding them to achieve sound money management. I enjoy helping individuals and businesses make beneficial decisions in regards to money and investment management. Long range planning is one of my professional passions and moving people from the thought of retirement to the reality of retirement is something I enjoy assisting our clients with.”
Paul has more than 25 years of experience advising business owners and affluent individuals about their finances. Paul has achieved the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ designation. Being a CFP® professional enables him to help clients focus on what is important to them. He has also earned the Chartered Retirement Plan Counselor (CRPC®) designation, which demonstrates his expertise in the area of retirement financial planning for individuals.
Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. owns the certification marks CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER ™, and CFP® in the U.S.
“I believe every family can achieve their financial goals if the path to do so is clear. This work of building paths and guiding clients along those paths is my passion, and it brings me tremendous joy. After twenty years of doing this, I am more excited today than ever about helping families with their finances. Helping one family at a time make good choices makes a difference. I believe that wholeheartedly and am thankful for the opportunity to serve so many people in this capacity.”
Austin is the owner and visionary behind The Wealth Group. His #1 responsibility is to lead our team in devotion to the mission: providing quality financial planning and investment management to the firm’s clients.
Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. owns the certification marks CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER ™, and CFP® in the U.S.
Truth is Stranger Than Fiction
By Mike Earl, CFP®, CPWA®
The stock market is good at keeping us humble. Well, it should keep us humble. No one knows what will come next. Whatever your view on how the COVID-19 crisis will play out, none of us can say how global markets will fare in the short-term. In the long-term, the US stock market has always gone up — that’s why new all-time highs are made every so often (including just a few short months ago).
I enjoy talking to my dad about investing. He’s had a longer tenure as an investor than me, so I can learn from his past experience — and attempt to apply it to my own investing life.
Our family’s Spring Break trip to Florida in 2000 took place during the infamous dot-com bubble burst. I can vividly remember my dad’s reaction to the news of the bursting of the tech bubble. He had some of his portfolio (I’m not sure how much) invested in dot-com stocks via the Nasdaq Composite Index, which declined by 25% that week of our Spring Break. It ultimately took 15 years for the Nasdaq to get back to its high from the year 2000.
My dad handled the news really well. He was disappointed, of course. But he moved on. It had not broken our family financially, by any means. But for me, it was a helpful lesson on the perils of chasing the hottest investment idea around. The technology sector today is vastly superior to the technology sector of the late 1990s. Today, many tech stocks have incredible profits. Back then, there were plenty of tech stocks that had never turned a profit.
I try to remind myself often that when it comes to markets, truth is stranger than fiction. By acknowledging this simple maxim (another proverb attributed to Mark Twain), I hope to guard myself against the ever-present temptation to make predictions about short-term stock market performance – or the performance of individual stocks, industries, or sectors.
Dad has learned a lot of lessons over his investment lifetime, but he still likes to dabble in momentum stocks. I know it can be a thrill to own exciting stocks. Take this text exchange we had yesterday:
In the morning, he was looking at his profits in Shopify, a Canadian technology company that hit new all-time highs yesterday. In the afternoon, he was looking at the stunning collapse of oil prices (he has not invested directly in oil or energy; he was simply noting the chaos in the oil market).
My dad’s texts yesterday highlighted two stories I could never have dreamed up: Shopify with a $70 billion market cap; and the price of oil going negative.
Shopify is a Canadian software company that helps businesses grow their e-commerce revenue. The stock is up over 2,000% over the last five years. The company is struggling to earn a profit, with annual sales of $1.6 billion.
A $70 billion market cap makes their valuation larger than Target Corporation, our Minnesota-based favorite that has annual revenue of $78 billion and income of $3.3 billion.
Is Shopify a more valuable enterprise than Target? Only time will tell. I don’t know what will happen, and I don’t I have a dog in that fight. But I do know that I couldn’t have predicted this continued, meteoric rise in Shopify’s stock price (justified or not).
The second wild story was the price of crude oil going negative yesterday. As the New York Times put it, “Something bizarre happened in the oil markets on Monday: Prices fell so much that some traders paid buyers to take oil off their hands.” Strange times, indeed. While the price of West Texas crude oil is down over 72% so far in 2020, that hasn’t stopped investors from pouring over $5 billion into USO, an ETF (investment) that attempts to track the price of oil:
You got that? The fund is down 72% this year, yet more than $5 billion of new money has poured into the fund. It’s the opposite of performance-chasing. This is contrarian investing (whether it will work out remains to be seen).
We have had a number of clients and friends ask us some variant of the following question:
“What can we invest in now to take advantage of this downturn?”
It’s an admirable impulse – and one that is far better than fear. But it can be a slightly misguided impulse, as it can lead these folks to focus on a very specific investment bet instead of making great financial planning decisions on a macro level.
I don’t know if/when airline stocks, cruise line stocks, and energy company stocks are going to recover. I sure hope they do, but I’m not going to make a concentrated financial bet that they do.
The best way to take advantage of equity market declines is to:
I don’t know what the recovery of global markets and economies from COVID-19 will look like. But I do know we will recover. And by owning a slice of the US stock market, I stand to take advantage of today’s equity prices in the long run.
Disclosures:
Because The Wealth Group, Austin B. Colby & Associates is independent of Raymond James, the expressed written opinions above are our own and not necessarily reflective of Raymond James’ opinions.
This commentary on this website reflects the personal opinions, viewpoints and analyses of the team members providing such comments, and should not be regarded as a description of advisory services provided by The Wealth Group or performance returns of any client of The Wealth Group.
The views reflected in the commentary are subject to change at any time without notice. Nothing on this website constitutes investment advice, performance data or any recommendation that any particular security, portfolio of securities, transaction or investment strategy is suitable for any specific person.
Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The Wealth Group manages its clients’ accounts using a variety of investment techniques and strategies, which are not necessarily discussed in the commentary. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
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