Investment Philosophy

We believe in long-term investing. We subscribe to the Modern Portfolio Theory and effective diversification across dissimilar asset classes. We invest in a wide variety of asset classes with the goal of capturing the return on capital that inevitably global capital markets produce.

  • We're located in beautiful Historic Downtown Chestertown

    We're located in beautiful Historic Downtown Chestertown

  • Move your "Someday" closer with our IRA's.

    Move your "Someday" closer with our IRA's.

Financial Services

Financial Services

We provide investment and financial advice across the entire financial spectrum—and strive to make an extremely complicated field simple again
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Advisors

Advisors

Martin Knight is a Certified Financial Planner™ and has passed the Series 7, Series 24, Series 31 and Series 66 exams. He is licensed to sell securities and to offer investment advice for a fee in Maryland. He also holds a Maryland Life and Health insurance license.
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Articles

Articles

Our collection of articles on investing strategy and market insights. The articles were written by advisors on our team.
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FINRA'S BrokerCheck

FINRA'S BrokerCheck

Check the background of this investment professional on FINRA's BrokerCheck
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Newsletter #50 (01/08/2024

It’s been a couple of months since the last newsletter (September 2023), and I apologize.  The end of the year is one of our busiest times, both at the office and at home.  And, if I had to pick my two least favorite months of the calendar, it would be, without a doubt, November and December.  Lucky for us, the markets in 2023 thought otherwise. Read More

Newsletter #49 (09/06/23)

As we enter the last four months of 2023, I’m reminded that this time last year was not so pleasant.  September 6, 2022, the S&P closed at 3,908 on its way south to the low of the year on October 12 of 3,577.  We were fielding a few worried calls.  What made matters worse was that the asset class in our portfolios, which is designed to be the ballast, Fixed Income Bonds, also had their worst year in decades.  (Bond prices and rising interest rates are inversely correlated.)

But markets like 2022 are where real money is made.  Market downturns like CY2022 are opportunities to buy the best companies in the world (even in the history of the world) at significant discounts.  And the icing on top of those share-price discounts, the company dividends were increasing—up about 11% in 2022.  In most of our accounts, we’re reinvesting them.  So we buy or hold companies selling at a discount, reinvest our dividends into more shares of those companies, and voila, we have a great year in 2023Read More

Newsletter #48 (07/13/23)

If you’ve been a good saver and a salaried worker throughout your life, you more than likely have an IRA, 401k, TSP, or 457.  (These are called qualified plans.)  Many people have a combination of them and perhaps multiple accounts at different places.  And if you’re approaching retirement, you should have some pretty high balances.  These accounts were built by saving pre-tax money from your paycheck or business earnings.

Pre-tax money means you postponed paying income tax on the money that went into those accounts.  This is a great way to save on income taxes while working, at the same time stashing some income for retirement.  The US has a “progressive income tax,” meaning that the more income you earn, the higher the tax rate you pay (from 10% to 37%).  Deferring part of that earned money from the highest tax brackets makes perfect sense. Read More

Newsletter #47 (06/14/23)

The first six months are nearly in for 2023, and the markets are starting well.  Markets try to price in the economy six months ahead of time.  Many analysts are assuming a recession this year, which was probably priced in at the beginning of the year.  It’s what investors think will happen after that recession that’s being priced in now.  A popular Wall Street maxim is that Bull markets (rising markets) climb a wall of worry.  It seems that’s happening now—but we’ll see.

On the local level, we have been alerted that Pershing is raising the costs of mailing paper statements.  It’s already high—as in $1.25 per statement—but it’s going to $2 after August 31 and $3 after January 2024, then $5 by June 2024.  There is nothing I hate more than paying for a statement.  This annoyance is Pershing’s deal—they want to be “paper-free by 2023.” I guess they’re trying to be green.  I think they’re trying to add $5 (in green) to their bottom line.  (I ordered a 55-pound window a Read More

Newsletter #46 (05/04/23)

Welcome to May, when stockbrokers sell and go away.  This old saying is not as relevant today as a few decades ago when floor traders on Wall Street would vacation for the month in the Hamptons.  I imagine eleven straight months of screaming and shouting (bids and asks) at each other would take its toll.

Historically, May is not a big month on the markets.  Courtesy of Moneychimp.com, here are the S&P 500 monthly averages from 1960 to 2022: Read More

Newsletter #45 (3-17-23)

Last week an economist said something to the effect that inflation is cancer and higher interest rates are chemotherapy.  Higher interest rates are not good, but inflation is much worse, and it must be kept under control.  Inflation is a serious threat to any economy.  And controlling it is under the purview of our government–it is, perhaps, one of the primary and most crucial roles of our government—to protect private property rights.  The question arises, though, why do we have inflation?

Well, it’s not like we haven’t seen this movie before—and as a country, we have understood it very well.  As long ago as 1970, Milton Friedman (1912 – 2006), an American Economist—a Nobel prize-winning economist no less said, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.” Too much money, too little output.  Or simply, too much money chasing too few goods. Read More

Newsletter #44 (12-30-22)

We can probably all agree that 2022, financially, was not the year we had hoped for–especially after opening your last statement.  The year before (2021) was fantastic, and in January, we looked on with confidence that the new year might not turn out as incredible as 2021, but that it would follow up with some pretty good returns.  Many “financial experts” predicted a positive 10% or so return in 2022.

Well, in the end, it wasn’t even close.  Nothing grows to the sky, and nothing in the market rides up a straight line.  That we consistently believe that this year will be like the last is called recency bias.  It is a cognitive bias in our thinking that favors recent events over historical ones.  It is a natural survival instinct.  (Our pre-historic ancestors did not have the luxury of studying history—they survived by living in the moment.  They didn’t have to worry about paying for retirement either.) Read More

Newsletter #43 (09/23/2022)

September 23, 2022

It is clear by now that 2022 will be a bad year in the market.  As an eternal market optimist, Newsletter #43 was going to be packed full of explanations and examples of why we will be fine.  But as I write this, there is simply nothing cheerful or upbeat to say.

Except for this—regardless of how bleak this looks, it will get better.  And when we look back at this year-long depressing dip, we will wish that we had bought more.  We cannot see the future—but we can study the past, and there has never been a recession or bear market that has lasted forever.  This one will pass—as have all the others.

So, while I may not be my ordinarily cheerful, happy-go-lucky self, I’m not worried.  Admittedly, I’m a little grumpy, but not overly so.  We have seen worse—and I mean a lot worse—and inevitably, we look back and think, why didn’t I buy more then?

Well, for the record, we are buying here and there.  We’re reinvesting dividends, and when those monthly deposits come in, we’re picking up some pretty good bargains.  Some days I feel like an absolute genius—but recently, in this market, it doesn’t take long for me to learn humility all over again.  And for the millionth time, I remind myself that daily movements mean little for investments intended for years. Read More

Newsletter #42 (07-01-2022)

July 1, 2022

The first six months of 2022 saw the S&P 500 decline 23.6% from its all-time high at 4,796.56 on January 3 to a closing low (so far) of 3,666.77 on June 16.  The S&P “officially” hit bear market territory around June 13, when it ended the day 22% below that record high on January 3.[i]  The Index finished its worst first half since 1970 at 3,785.38.

More noteworthy even than the extent of the decline was its gathering violence: in mid-June, when we stumbled into bear territory, the market ran off a streak of five out of seven trading days on which 90% of S&P 500 stocks closed lower.  That’s a bad run, to say the least.

Now, let’s stop right there.  Regardless of any other points, I’ll make in this newsletter, the most urgent should already be clear.  Simply put, the best way to destroy any chance for lifetime investment success has historically been to sell one’s quality portfolios into a bear market.  But to sell when investor sentiment is sufficiently negative to drive 90% of S&P companies lower on five out of seven trading days—that is, to sell when everyone else is selling—must strike us as the height of long-term folly. Read More

Newsletter #41 (06/01/2022)

June 1, 2022

Welcome to June and the beginning of summer in three weeks.  Last month, when it was all said and done, there was a lot more said than done.  The markets did their best impression of a wire with a weighty tightrope walker.  The S&P 500 opened May at 4,130.61 and sagged to as low as 3,899.00 on May 19, and finally closed on May 31 at 4,132.15 for a monthly gain of 1.54 points, or .00037%.

Had you been listening to the financial “journalists,” you would be forgiven for being frightened out of your wits.  As if on cue, they flipped through their Rolodex to “Perma-bears” and dialed up all the usual suspects.  From Nouriel Roubini to Mohamed El-Erian, their stopped clock was finally correct.  The market was going to crash.  Or was it?  The markets flirted with the bear, but it didn’t quite make it in the end.  We squeaked under the wire at a negative 19% on May 19 and, as noted above, actually turned slightly positive by June 1. Read More

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