Choosing the Right Course
Two stories in recent weeks drove home to us how truly difficult a period this has been for investors. No matter how sophisticated or naïve you are, it has been tough to avoid disaster. This week Bernie Madoff drew a sentence of life in prison for running the biggest financial fraud in history. People gave their life savings to one of the most sophisticated investors in the world, a pillar of Wall Street, and it all vanished. One of his investors was a university that gave him a big chunk of its endowment. Among the contributors was the estate of a single woman who had lived frugally and invested in Blue Chip stocks for 70 years. A career civil servant, she had given the university more than $20 million dollars. A lifetime of successful investing was squandered in one poor decision.
At the other extreme was the classic person who did not trust financial institutions at all. Instead she stuffed all her spare money, almost $1 million, in a mattress. So secretive was the elderly woman, that even her grown daughter wasn’t aware of her savings habits. That backfired when the daughter decided in early June to surprise her mother and replace the lumpy mattress with a brand new one. When they realized the next day what had happened, they scoured the local garbage dump but with 2,500 tons of new garbage each day, the missing mattress was nowhere to be found.
There are risks everywhere and it’s difficult for even the most sophisticated investors to strike a proper balance. We draw on our three decades of institutional investment experience to spot the pitfalls and help you achieve your financial goals and dreams.
www.lexingtonave.com
www.lexingtonave.com