It’s Sunday, April 6th and Three Fountains, the office campus we’ve called home for the last five years, is all but empty. Only a few cars vie for the parking spots closest to the doors. Iowa Wealth Management’s new suite, just one building over from our old home, is oddly quiet.
For most investors, 2024 turned out to be a good year. For some, a very good year, although I suspect historians will be most taken by details easily overlooked from this vantage point.
Driving into work today, I stopped for a school bus coming in the opposite direction and waited for two of the neighborhood kids to board. A family from my neighborhood has a nice little tradition the bus driver allows for: Dad waves first, then Mom and finally baby sister (about age 4 who clearly cherishes her moment). Then, and only after the little sister waves, does the driver pull away. It’s a cute scene and I’m glad I got to witness the following moment, as the little girl danced her way back up the drive, arms above her head, swaying to a beat only she could hear.
Early this spring, we got a suspicious bank notice.
The day had been long and fruitful, but darkness would come in about an hour as I traveled west on Interstate 90. I had been traveling at the limit of the Minnesota Highway Patrol’s good humor for the last few hours with the hope of not having to travel flooded terrain in the dark, but I was tired, hungry and in need of... a return to my favorite McDonald’s in Fairmont, MN. That oasis of cleanliness, good cheer and perfected Quarter Pounders with Cheese I last wrote about for Labor Day in 2021.