The view of the garden from my office.
Hard to believe it has been nearly 30 years since I walked away from dealing with investing clients, prospects, or the financial media. I also stopped speaking at capacity-filled investment conferences around the world from New Orleans to Switzerland to Hong Kong.
About that same time, Debbie and I bought two Harley-Davidson motorcycles along with a little pink Conch cottage in Key West, Florida. In the following decades, we racked-up 125,000 miles on the bikes with not a single mishap (or road beer) along the way.
Today, dodging road obstacles and traffic or riding through passing thunderstorms is not as attractive as it once was, so we have put the bikes away. Now that we aren’t riding bikes, we have morphed into more age-appropriate travel especially to Paris and our friend’s hotel/Bistro in Beaune, Burgundy.
When not traveling, I read, research, and post from my garden desk in Key West (just 90 miles from Cuba) or in Newport.
If you have followed me over the many decades, you know how conservative I am. My original Ben Graham focus on dividends, interest, and compounding has not changed a lick since I started Young Research in 1978 in a small 2nd-floor office on Thames Street in Newport, Rhode Island.
Our family was raised in Newport. Matt and Beck graduated from Rogers High School in the 80s (as did Debbie in the 1960s). Today Matt is CEO of Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., and Becky is CFO and president of Young Research.
Debbie and I still live in Newport during warmer NE months, three blocks from where Debbie grew up. Becky and E.J. (The Survival Guy) with two of our grandchildren, Isabella and Owen, live just a couple of blocks away.
Matt and Allison (Allison also grew up on Aquidneck Island) and our three Naples grandchildren, Emma, Rick, and Jack, spend summers in the next town over.
So as you can see, we haven’t gone far! There has been no need. It is for this reason that I am shocked that a quite modest family business with a small town leafy side street main office (with no sign) can for nine consecutive years make the roster of Barron’s Top 100 (Financial Advisors) (2012-2020) And even named in the top 10 of CNBC‘s Financial Advisor 100 (2019 and 2020). How? It could be as simple as really trying to do what is right every time for conservative thinkers, just like us. I hope so. Disclosure
We think of ourselves as small town, Main Street conservatives who don’t believe in the welfare/warfare state. We are promoters of the Swiss Way. Each member of our family is a gun owner and is properly trained in the use of firearms of all varieties. For our go-to for home protection, our family all own the Henry Repeating Arms Survival Rifle.
Debbie and I feel fortunate to have been able to spend three decades in the privacy of working from home, reading, and researching in Key West and in Newport.