The Rosenblatt’s had quite an interesting holiday this year. For the past several years, we have Christmas Eve dinner in the Bay Area, open presents Christmas morning, and then fly to San Diego mid-afternoon to have Christmas dinner with Melissa’s family. This year things didn’t go quite as planned. Everything looked great leading up to Christmas day when we received our first text from Southwest Airlines saying our 2PM flight was now delayed to 3PM. Luckily, the text came early enough in the day that we were able to remain home until our new departure time. About an hour after the first text arrived a second delay text came saying our new departure time was 4PM. So, as recommended by the airline, we packed up, got in the car, and headed to the airport 2.5 hours before the flight. Everything was going great. We parked the car, got into the Skycap line, and that’s when everything fell apart. We were second in line to drop off our checked bag when we received the dreaded “cancelled flight” text. Urgh! That type of text ranks up there in the top 10 worst texts ever to receive. Luckily, we hadn’t checked our bag yet. Unluckily, the Southwest staff told us to stand in a line that stretched from terminal two all the way to terminal one to rebook to a different flight. For those of you who don’t know Oakland Airport, that’s equivalent to standing in a line of about 100 people at Disneyland for a broken ride. Being the clever guy I am, I said Melissa, “you stand with the kids in this crazy long line, and I will go up to the gate to see if there is anyone to talk to up there”. I made it through security pretty easily and headed toward the gate. What I saw when I got up the concourse was absolute craziness. The customer service lines on the other side of security were equal to, if not longer in length than the one I left Melissa and the kids in. Irate passengers were closely listening to announcements telling them to go back to the baggage claim to reclaim their checked luggage. It was at that point I made the executive decision to pull rip cord and go home. On our walk back to the car, we decided, instead of waiting for Southwest to rebook us on another flight, we will pack up the car and drive first thing in the morning. Luckily, we made this decision because every flight from Oakland to San Diego was cancelled that day, and the next 3 days following.

            So, you may be asking yourself why did I just tell you this story? Was it to bash Southwest Airlines? No. Southwest did everything in their power to accommodate their customers in what turned out to be a terrible situation, somewhat out of their control. I told you this story as reminder that things don’t always go as planned. You need to be adaptable to your current environment to meet your ultimate goals. Last year’s market decline was clearly a bump in the road in peoples investing plans, including my own. Whether you had a growth portfolio, value portfolio or income portfolio, you probably lost value. So how did you react to this? Did you say to yourself, I give up on this investing stuff and move 100% to cash or did you follow in the Rosenblatt’s footsteps: pack up the car, flip on the GPS and continue to drive toward your ultimate goals?  Investing is easy when the markets go up. Investing is difficult when the markets go down. Whatever your investment objective is, keep your eye on the prize. Remember this is a marathon, not a sprint and making money happens by sticking to your long-term investment goals. All in all, we had a great holiday season and I hope you did as well. Looking forward to a prosperous New Year.