Brandon Kou -American Private Wealth

03/30/2026

Last week was incredibly busy, but an amazing time!

Monday and Tuesday I was invited by my friend Shari L.S. Worthington, PhD to speak to students at for their Employers in Residence Program. It was an honor to be able to speak with and learn more from these young professionals what they believe are important skills for the future job market.

Almost all of the questions asked weren't about material compensation, but instead things like "How do I find a career that I truly love and enjoy," or "What do you think is the most important skill to be successful?" They were focused on being better people, enriching their communities, and solving problems that others could not. It was so wonderful to see the next generation will be better than the previous one because they are picking up where we left off and going even further than we could imagine.

Then of course Tuesday night I spent my evening with members of at Tavern of Tales. Frost Call is a nonprofit organization that seeks to connect veterans in the Massachusetts area through video gaming, board games, and tabletop roleplaying games. We were blessed as always to have Lou, a professional DM and expressive therapist come teach us how to make characters before running a wonderful one-shot RPG with those characters in record time.

Wednesday and Friday I had weekly check-in meetings with three separate clients. It’s awesome to see each of them progress with the plan we’ve made together and if any obstacles come up, we discuss it at length before deciding on a course of action.

Saturday, .like.a.girl and I were at the Northshore Mall for the 22nd annual Life, Home and Lifestyle expo. We got to talk to a lot of people about our mission at American Private Wealth and had great conversations not just about the market but what’s going on in peoples lives.

Finally on Sunday I rounded it off by attending Pax East with my girlfriend. We got to see so many vendors and awesome games coming out before volunteering at the Frost Call room. She ended up winning a small Gengar from the raffle while I got an awesome pin. Can’t wait to see what this week brings and the rest of the year!

03/30/2026

03/27/2026

We will be at the Northshore Mall from 10AM-3PM as part of the 22nd Annual Life, Home, & Lifestyle Expo ran by the Peabody Area Chamber of Commerce.

If you're in the area, we would love to see you! Admission is free, so please take advantage of their generosity and stop by.

03/26/2026

This is a perfect example of why you shouldn't invest in a single company.

Who doesn't know about Disney in todays age? Some market researchers cite about 97% of people in the world recognize the iconic mascot of a beloved 102-year-old company with a market cap of $170B.

But this infographic failed to capture the dividend returns, which would make your investment slightly positive if you reinvested them to the tune of about $12K.

Let that sink in for a moment. You put your faith in the Mouse and for 11 years you've received in exchange movies/media of varying quality, threats of arbitration if you signed up for Disney plus but got a food allergy at one of their parks, and of course roughly $181.82 a year in dividends on average.

Comparatively, had you picked a diversified investment vehicle in 2015 like a mutual fund or an ETF that mimicked the S&P 500, your return with dividends invested would be anywhere from $37-39k depending on the expense ratio of the vehicle.

Less stress, less volatility and a significantly better return sounds like the option I'd pick.

If you don't have specialized training, equipment, and pick stocks for a living, you really should save yourself the heartache and invest sensibly.

And if you're uncertain or don't know where to begin or how to start, please speak with a fiduciary financial planner that can help you figure it out.

02/09/2026

MYTH: I’m properly diversified if I invest in an S&P 500 fund

Investing in a single stock is incredibly risky, so you are better off picking a mutual fund, index fund, or ETF to diversify your holdings. The reason this works so well is that many investors stop after taking this first step believing it to be completely suitable for their circumstances.

For those of us who have the majority of our investments in one of these three products, I’m willing to bet that it is in a vehicle that mimics the S&P 500 to some degree. That’s not a bad line of thinking, given it has the 500 biggest companies in the U.S. weighted by market capitalization.

But as with any set of data we need to ask what are the biggest factors that drive change within the set? In the case of the S&P 500 there is a term called the Magnificent 7, which was coined by Michael Hartnett in 2023.

Hartnett picked these seven stocks (Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla) for a few reasons:
• In 2016 they made up 12.5% of the total S&P 500 value, as of February 2026 they are now 34.3%
• From 2016-2025 they achieved an overall return of 875.5% compared to 234.9% for the S&P 500
• Nvidia only made up 0.8% of the Mag 7’s combined value in 2016 and is now 20.8% of that value at 4.5 trillion dollars

Just think about that for a moment, these are all big tech companies and if you invest into an S&P 500 fund that purely mimics it, a third of your total gains and losses are dictated by 7 companies. This can lead to some sharp fluctuations both up and down, which isn’t bad if you have a long time horizon to weather the storm.

But there is a mathematical component many people don’t consider. If your portfolio loses a total value of 10%, to regain its original value it needs to grow about 12%. At a 20% loss you’re looking at 25%, and at a 50% drop then you need 100% growth.

If you truly have your portfolio properly diversified by giving up a little bit of the upside to negate a larger portion of the downside, you have a much higher chance of growing your portfolio faster than someone without a strategy in place. Don’t be greedy, future you deserves better.

01/26/2026

MYTH: I’ll start investing when the market is just right (I can time the market)

As everyone knows, one surefire way to get rich is to buy low and sell high, especially with stocks. No one wants to purchase something right before the price collapses and be forced to hold onto a potentially rapidly depreciating asset. This is rather pervasive because of that sound logic and a few other reasons.

2025 was a hard year for some of us who were invested in the stock market. The constant uncertainty around trade and global issues spurred emotional responses and we saw that in April the S&P 500 was down roughly 20% for many investors.

But 2025 seemed to also be a year where we kept hitting new all-time highs in the market. According to JP Morgan the S&P 500 reported 39 new all-time highs which weren’t nearly as impressive as 2024’s 57 days, or 2021’s 70 days. But what was astounding is that in 2025, 31% of those all-time highs established a new market floor.

What this means is that after those highs were established, the S&P 500 never fell more than 5% from there and kept increasing in value! Many of us are anticipating a market correction surrounding the AI bubble before entering the market or purchasing more shares. But let me paint a familiar picture as to why that’s a bad idea.

The year is 2008 and the housing market has collapsed. A lot of people have seen their portfolios drop around 38.5% to almost 50% depending on investments. Show of hands, how many of us here who were invested at the time purchased more stocks during this tumultuous period?

We need to invest unemotionally and for the long term. We need a strategy and then we must stick to it. From 1988 to 2025, if you started investing in the stock market on any given day and held for 5 years, you’d receive an average return of 76%. If you were lucky and picked an all-time high, that return would be 82%.

Don’t try to time the market and don’t presume it’s better to enter at another time. The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago. The next best time is now! Start growing your financial garden while it’s easier to do so and while you still can.

01/12/2026

MYTH: Paying rent is losing money because you’re not building equity!

The idea of homeownership is intrinsically tied to the American dream. So, it makes sense a lot of people get upset at the idea of paying rent which makes this that much more powerful. But as with all myths, this one can and will cost you money if you act on emotion alone.

Let’s get this out of the way, it’s not okay that multi-billion-dollar corporations own a lot of real estate and don’t want to sell. It makes the market that much worse, but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible to own a home.

It’s also true that the cost of homes has outpaced increase in wages. According to the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies, the median single-family home increased by 48 percent from 2019-2024, while the median income rose by only 22 percent.

But people don’t factor in that owning a home comes with increased costs, not less. Yes, it is true that some mortgages are as expensive, or even less expensive than the rent people pay. But you also must pay property taxes, homeowners’ insurance (which is more expensive than renters typically speaking), HOA fees if God forbid you live in one of those places, and MAINTENANCE costs.

Single Family Home: $414k
20% Downpayment: $82,800
Homeowner’s Insurance (Average): $2,110
Maintenance as 1% of total home value: $4,140
Property Tax (Median): $3,500

At a 6% interest rate for a 30-year term, you’re looking at paying around $2k a month for this hypothetical mortgage. With your other additional expenses, this increases to $2.7k a month, not including your utilities bill. In some states certain utilities are covered by your landlord, so you’ll incur even more upkeep!

I get it, we all want something we can call our own. If you are in a situation where you are paying rent, you’re not throwing money away. You just very well may not be able to afford all the costs that go into owning a home at this stage of your life, but that doesn’t mean that’ll always be the case. As with all things in life, it boils down to how badly do we want something and what are we willing to sacrifice to attain our desires?

01/05/2026

MYTH: There’s only one correct way to manage your money!

Now more than ever we are constantly bombarded with a plethora of information, especially when it comes to what we should do with our money. Most of this is well-intentioned, but this rears its head when people get narrow minded or just too attached to a method that works well for them.

Money has always been a taboo subject for a lot of households. For various reasons many people do not talk about it or explore ideas beyond what is considered conventional wisdom to them. My family has always been open to discussing how to make money but strongly opinionated on what to do with it.

In my household, my mother managed our financial situation. My godfather and godmother lived with us as well and she often consulted him for a second opinion on many decisions. My godfather is much more conservative compared to my mother when it comes to financial decisions, so there were times she went against the advice she asked for.

But the important thing is that they talked to each other. They frequently sat down with other family members and discussed many topics financial and otherwise. As kids, we were allowed to sit in if we felt like being bored by inflation and cost of living back when those were abstract ideas to us.

What I took from those dinner table conversations is that whatever works for you is what you should do, but don’t be afraid to ask questions! We all must walk our own path and how we manage our money is a part of our individual circumstances. In our hyper-connected world, it’s becoming less and less practical to manage our money alone without expert aid at some point in our lives. We see a doctor at least once a year for a check-up, our financial health should be no different.

(I would be remiss if I did not address financial exploitation in this post. It is not okay and not normal for your finances to be entirely dictated by someone if you do not have a specific need for such measures. If you or someone you know is in such a situation, that’s a red flag and you should talk to them or the appropriate authorities if you have credible evidence they are being exploited.)

12/22/2025

No Monday this week or the next. I flew out to South Dakota with my mother, father, and girlfriend to visit my sister's family to include my newest nephew! We just welcomed my third nephew into the family just shy of two months ago. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to you and your families from mine!

12/15/2025

MYTH: All financial planners and advisors have your best interest in mind.

12/08/2025

MYTH: A high income makes you wealthy!

We talked last week about people not earning ‘enough’ to save for retirement. Now let’s address the other head of this dragon which props both of them up. It seems like sound logic, if you make a lot of money that means you’re wealthy right?

My godfather loved to pose this question to me as a child, “Who is better off, a man who makes a million dollars or a man who makes a hundred dollars?” Naturally the first time I heard it I said a million dollars of course! He then added a caveat and the lesson, “What I didn’t tell you is that the man who makes a million only keeps one dollar, while the man who makes a hundred keeps ninety-nine dollars.”

It's not how much we make but how much we save that determines our wealth. We don’t have complete control over what we earn, but we have total control over what we spend.

Experian reported Americans collectively owe $18.33 trillion in debt as of June 2025. Broken down by credit scores, 50% of that debt is owned by people with Very Good (740-799) or Exceptional (800-850). Respectively their average debt is $105,725 and $165,472.

Biggie Smalls said it best in 1997, ”Mo Money Mo Problems”. We don’t know how many of these people are living within their means or worse above it!

The Survey of Consumer Finances reports that for people under age 35, roughly 50% of families had retirement accounts which only increased to 62% in the 35-54 range.

Let that sink in for a second. If you know anyone under 35 then statistically speaking only half of them have any sort of retirement savings. When we get to 35+ where we would see those higher credit scores mentioned, then it means 4 out of 10 people statistically don’t have a retirement account for whatever reason.

It is the pinnacle of foolishness to make more than most people will earn on average across the globe and have nothing to show for it. Enjoy your life and experience it to its fullest, but if you’re one of these people with no retirement savings why are you squandering your opportunity to become truly wealthy?