Many years ago in London, when store sales were limited to a time period just after the Christmas holiday, the waiting and anticipation game in the run up to these events was exciting. Knowing that those luxury, high-end brands you had been lusting after all year were about to become affordable at 30 to 50 percent cheaper was as good, if not better than Christmas Eve. The catch? You would have a limited time to get them (so you had to make sure what you wanted beforehand) and you had better be first in line otherwise they would be gone before you could take advantage of the sale. That’s if you made it through the scuffles on the door of course. One year, I distinctly remember finding out about the Burberry sale. I desperately wanted to get the industry standard beige colored trench coat. For years actually. I lined up for hours, bored senseless, cold, but also, at the same time, filled with excitement. I eventually got one at a great discount, which I still own to this day. Incidentally it’s one of my better apparel investments and served me through many rainy days.

I’ve been in the financial industry for over 30 years and have seen great times as well as times I’d like to curl up and die when I looked at my returns in the short-term. The hardest part of investing are drawdowns, but even great companies experience them and expecting this should be paramount for investors every once in a while. What’s important is how you manage them in your portfolio. It’s been a rough start to the year as an equity investor. The previous years have been somewhat, let’s say, “easy,” but in my experience, capital preservation and accumulating the right investments in these times are the key to real future wealth creation.

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