A note on patience, and the Fourth

It's a summer afternoon. You're cleaning out a drawer. Or a desk. Or the back of a closet at a relative's house that hasn't been opened in years.

You find a coin.

The date reads 1776.

This Independence Day, the country turns 250.

Two and a half centuries since a few people planted trees for shade they'd never sit in.

A lot has happened since. Wars. Inventions. Generations of families. A whole lot of summers.

Imagine, just for a moment, that the coin hadn't sat in a drawer.

Imagine it had grown at about 8% a year, the long-term return of American business.

Just left to grow. For 250 years.

That single silver dollar (bear with us on the analogy) would be worth about $220 million today.

Just shy of $250 million. One coin, and a lot of patience.

That's not magic.

That's time, on your side.

You'll hear a lot of versions of this story this summer. Most will be about America. This one is about you.

Here's how it works.

At roughly 8% a year, money doubles every nine years. More than twenty-five doublings over 250 years.

One. Two. Four. Eight. Sixteen.

The first few doublings are unimpressive. The last few are absurd. That's the whole shape of compounding. Slow, slow, slow, then enormous.

You don't have 250 years. Nobody does.

You have 30 or 40 or 50 summers, give or take, depending on where you're starting.

But the math doesn't mind a shorter runway. It simply asks that you don't interrupt it.

Every flinch can cost a doubling. Every panic locks in the loss before the rebound. Every "I'll start next year" is one more year the coin sits in the drawer.

The country's been compounding for 250 years. Your horizon is a lot less daunting.

Most people don't lose money in markets. They lose it in moments. 

The moments they panicked, or got bored, or decided 30 years was too long to wait.

Most of you reading this don't need to do anything. Your plan is built for those moments. Math is on your side. Enjoy your summer.

Wherever you are spending this Independence Day, we hope it's a great one with family and close friends.

If you've got plans worth talking through, we're here.