Understanding that the greatest investment asset is time, Kendall Bauer has begun a series, Letters to a Young Investor. He spoke about the project with Joel Dresang.
What are you doing?
Kendall: I ‘m writing a regular series of letters geared to the next generation of investors in a relatable, easily digestible manner. I want to give people information that often gets overlooked or isn’t readily available. The things they should be thinking about early on in their investing. Something that my clients can give to their kids or beneficiaries or grandkids to maybe kickstart them on their investment journey.
Why is this important?
Kendall: The one thing that we can’t give back to clients is time, so the earlier that they get started, the earlier they learn these concepts. Whether they implement them is going to be up to them, but giving them that knowledge at least to start thinking about these things will have impactful benefits down the road in retirement.
Learn more
Financial guidance across generations, by Adam Baley
Kids: Take my advice. See my advisor, by Joel Dresang
Heaven can wait: Early inheritance, by Joel Dresang
The Ultimate Guide to Financial Literacy for Adults, from Investopedia.com
What sort of material do you plan to cover?
Kendall: The first handful of letters is building a foundation of investment knowledge. So, the very first one is about the power of time and how the earlier you get started, the better the long term. Then things like compound interest and how your money can make money. And consistency, so not falling victim to trying to time markets. Other letters will explain principles of diversification, risk and reward, patience, emotional investing, long-term planning and many more.
Who are you writing for?
Kendall: I want to keep it broad enough that everyone can take something away from it, but I would say mostly people in their 20s, around when they enter the workforce.
But even if you’re someone getting a late start to investing, you can benefit from a lot of the concepts that are going to be discussed in the series.
I want it to be open enough to help somebody that maybe just hasn’t started investing or hasn’t taken it seriously, and they wake up one day and they’re 35 or 40 or 45 and they say, ‘Uh-oh. What do I do now?’ They can still go back to some of these principles in this series and apply them to their life at that point.
How did you learn this material?
Kendall: I learned little bits of this in school – less in high school, more in college. But a lot of this stuff was not until I started here at Landaas. Even then, I picked it up through the nature of the job, vs. someone sitting me down and saying here’s what you need to think about as a young person starting their career in this industry.
Does being a parent influence your thinking about young investors?
Kendall: It’s certainly a part of it. Having something that my boys can look at or learn from or reference back to maybe someday when I’m not around or give their kids. In a sense, that’s part of maybe who these are being written for.
Do you have many young clients?
Kendall: I have a fair share, and a lot of them are kids or grandkids of clients that have been with the firm a long time. Sometimes they are the beneficiary of a large sum of money they weren’t expecting or they’re surprised with certain types of accounts that were started for them as a child and turned over to them at a certain age.
They run into this wonderful problem of having a nice chunk of money early on in life. These letters can help teach them good habits and give them the tools and equipment to handle that money.
Kendall Bauer is vice president and investment advisor at Landaas & Company, LLC.
Joel Dresang is vice president-communications at Landaas & Company, LLC.