At the end of October 2023 my colleague, Frank Boland, invited me to a visit with a client. I spent many years communicating with this client via email and phone calls. It was wonderful to finally meet them in person. A few short weeks later, on the day before Thanksgiving, I was at a pub with a friend when I heard the news that Frank had passed away. I was shocked and remember my denial  – “that can’t be I was just visiting clients with him a few weeks ago”. For me, it is one of those memories that remains detailed and vivid as if it happened yesterday. He was such an interesting person and if you ever chatted with him or read his monthly letters…then you know he had a plethora of stories to tell and experiences to share. 

It is interesting that certain moments or events in our lives remain so clear and present in our memory. A psychologist will certainly tell us that memories “recorded” with simultaneous strong emotion are more likely to remain clear and present to each of us for longer periods of time. Frank frequently talked about investor psychology. He was always reminding us that an investor’s emotional reaction to a declining market was at least two times greater than their emotional reaction to a rising market. I met an investor just last month who had always managed his own investments. He articulated, in detail, the torment he endured in the 2008 market decline. He physically felt ill when he locked in all those losses and went to cash. It has taken him more than fifteen years to begin moving past this traumatic event and reach out for help with his investments.

We all have a few of those emotional memory moments. But we also remember so much more – such as things we learn day in and day out. Frank was a perpetual student of the stock market and helped his clients through decades of bull and bear markets. A year later, having now met so many of his friends in person, I realize that I wasn’t the only one who learned so much from the experiences Frank shared through his stories and letters. It’s these everyday memories that help us reconcile the emotional moments.