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Everyone that came in person had the pleasure of being greeted by Janet Schwartz. PP Tom Barron presided over today’s hybrid meeting at Hillel at UCLA. President Benjamin was recovering from Knee surgery and attending by zoom. Without our president we struggled to get the meeting started as technical difficulties prevented the slide show to proceed. Experience and a healthy skepticism of modern technology helped PP Tom Barron rescue the situation, as he asked Jim Crane to lead us all in the Pledge. PP Mark Rogo quickly followed with the Thought of the Day, leading with the wise words, “Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today”. Phil Gabriel recited the 4-way test and PP Ed Gauld led everyone in a rough rendition of “I want a Girl” (maybe the singing would improve if we brought in the women to sing “I want a man”).
Three visiting Rotarians were introduced, including: Bob Simon in one of his last meetings as a ‘visitor’ from the Fullerton Club before officially transferring to WVRC, Karen Greenberg from South Bay Sunrise and the District Rotary Foundation Chair, and Stephen J. Weaver, Attorney at Law, from Santa Monica. No guests were introduced other than our visiting Speaker.
PP Tom (looking like Tom Cruise in his sunglasses) gently ribbed John O’Keefe before inviting him up to introduce the speaker by sharing some of John’s financial tips: Why doesn’t John Like the stock market: Because “Gentlemen prefer Bonds” (I’m still not sure I get that one). Why does he like Penny stocks, because it “makes a lot of cents” (unfortunately, I did get that one). How does John recommend making a million dollars in the stock market, by “starting out investing $2 million”.
Despite the audience's groans, PP Tom continued sharing advice from Steve Sherer. Proving that great minds think alike Steve’s advice on how to make a small fortune in the stock market is to start out with a big one. When asked for advice on how to invest in marijuana stocks he said, “Buy high and sell higher.”
John O’Keefe then came up and provided a thorough introduction to J. Barnes of the Capital Group. Founded in 1931 with $2.7 Trillion (1 Trillion = 1,000 billion as John pointed out), The Capital Group is a major player in wealth management. Despite the impatience of some of the audience, John finished his introduction and welcomed up J. Barnes, Senior Vice President, Private Wealth Advisor at Capital Group to speak about Passive vs Active investing.
While J. Barnes didn’t need to give much more background on the Capital Group than John provided, he did want to point out one of the things that differentiates Capital Group from other wealth management companies. They have provided over $340M in funds to non-profits to support a vast array of charitable activities.
Key take-aways from one of the few WVRC members that isn’t in the financial industry were:
- ‘Don’t try to time the market, you can’t’. Over the long haul, staying in the market beats out any attempt to jump in and out to optimize gains.
- Stocks do well in periods of modest inflation (0-6%
- While major geopolitical events can cause downturns, they are generally short-lived with the markets returning to gains quickly
- Top non-US equities have done better than top US equities, pointing to opportunity in diversifying with non-US holdings.
- Except for US-Tech. equities appear reasonably valued
- AI demand for electricity and shift from fossil fuels to green electricity production is creating an opportunity in companies involved in electricity generation (including nuclear power)
- Historically, the President’s party doesn’t impact returns
Many questions were asked throughout the talk, accompanied by requests to let the speaker continue the presentation. Overall J. handled this well responding succinctly to each question and returning to script. Ending with hearty applause for a highly informative presentation and discussion and a gift from WVRC presented by PP Tom. The meeting was thusly adjourned.
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