All week, I have been thinking about the victims of the tornado that ripped across the U.S.’s midwest. I pray for the families of those who lost loved ones. It seemed to catch everyone by surprise.

I think events like this make you think about the fragility of life, which can be gone in an instance. I leave you with one morbid, but honest question: If you left this earth tomorrow, is there anything about your life that you would want to experience or haven’t, or would you have done anything differently?

Life is short, and thus I urge you to try and live it as you want, with no regrets and like it’s your last day.

If you’re a fan of the hit series Insecure like me, there is no question about whether the show’s characters are trying to take full advantage of the life they have. Whether it’s Issa Rae’s character Issa Dee trying to find love or Yvonne Orji’s character Molly Carter trying to pursue her legal career with excellence, the show centers around women who want to pursue their dreams. If you’ve never seen Insecure, go watch it, especially since it’s going off the air after this season! Issa Rae and Yvonne Orji partake in a series that features an unbreakable Black millennial friend group as they navigate formative experiences in the heart of LA. They are all trying to live a wealthy life, as defined by them!

Furthermore, I have fielded many questions over the past few weeks from the Charisse Says community about where they should be parking their money as they head into 2022.

The options may seem a bit limited because most asset classes have been rising. For instance, the U.S. stock market has done extremely well for three consecutive years now, as evidenced by the S&P 500 Index up 97% on a total return basis since 2019. Home prices have soared in many areas around the U.S. Cryptocurrency has been on a tear over the last several years. As such, where you allocate your assets will be very important in the years to come, especially as one wonders how much more can these assets go up without feeling some pain in the short-term. And, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell recently stated that he expects the Fed to abandon a policy of monetary east, foreshadowing expected rises in interest rates, which will help fight inflation but depress the stock market, if history is any guide.

Let me bring an example home for you. Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), or baskets of securities that trade as easily as stocks, have boomed in 2021. According to the WSJ, this year’s inflows into ETFs world-wide crossed the $1 trillion mark for the first time at the end of November, surpassing last year’s total of $736 billion. And now, global ETF assets stant at nearly $9.5 trillion, more than double where the industry stood at the end of 2018. If that doesn’t blow your mind, I don’t know what will. What this means is that investors have benefited from ETFs in a magnanimous way and it’s only a matter of time before the tide changes.

Or, you may be thinking about what individual companies you may want to invest in. For instance, have there been any terrible stock performers lately, and are you looking to take advantage of the lower prices in hopes of a bigger return pay-off over the long-term. I have been following DocuSign, which allows users to sign documents electronically and whose stock performed well during the pandemic because it benefited from remote work. Recently, however, the stock tumbled 42% in a single day after DocuSign missed its revenue forecast because it miscalculated how bad the company would perform as employees returned to work. Could DocuSign now offer an attractive buying opportunity? It’s CEO Daniel Springer certainly thinks so, as evidenced by Springer’s buying spree soon after the stock cratered.

Please ask yourself: Are there other stocks or trends, such as employees returning to work, that make you think differently about where to place your money?

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The fragility of life, a potential DocuSign investing opportunity, and wealthy babies!!!

Charisse Says

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