DFA, the mutual fund company in which our clients' money is invested, has put together a presentation titled Pursuing a Better Investment Experience. It highlights 10 key decisions that can help investors target long-term wealth building strategies. The linked PDF offers a very clear and concise explanation of these 10 key decisions. There is also some additional information about each topic to read by hovering over the conversation bubble in the top left corner.
 
I especially like Item 8. Manage Your Emotions on page 9 and Item 10. Focus on What You Can Control on page 11. Part of our job is to manage your investing and retirement emotions. We don’t want our clients to get too high (“elation”) or too low (“fear”) as they journey through life towards a safe, secure and comfortable retirement. In doing this we focus on what we can control: creating an investment plan, diversifying, keeping expenses low while minimizing behavior that increases taxes, and staying focused and disciplined through the markets ups and downs.  

For most quarterly reports I like to draw your attention to the article included at the end of the report, this time around the article is one I sent out two months ago.  Why would you have not read it then 😊, but just in case you missed it, you can check out the article and my take on it here. 
 
Also, a page included in every quarterly report is the ‘World Stock Market Performance” that can be seen on page 4.  You can see major headlines from around the world…good, bad, and indifferent.  Do these headlines explain market performance?  Maybe, maybe not.  Most often we don’t truly know what makes a marker go up a few points today and down a few points the next, but it is important to remember these headlines remind us to view daily events from a long-term perspective and to avoid making long-term investment decisions based on short-term headlines.