Flowers

Last month, Tobias Levkovich was walking across Peninsula Boulevard in the Five Towns (about ten minutes from where I live) when he was struck by a car. The family announced that he had succumbed to his injuries and passed. Tobias was 60 years old.

If the name ‘Tobias Levkovich’ sounds familiar, he was one of the most well known and highly regarded chief US equity strategists on Wall Street, a position he had held for the last two decades at Citi. He appeared on all the shows and was constantly being referenced and quoted in Barron’s, the Wall Street Journal and everywhere else.

I didn’t know it at the time, but this appearance of his from July 2019 was the last time I would ever speak with him again.

Life is fucked up that way. We run around talking to each other, forgetting to keep up with our friends, making casual acquaintances out of people and just basically taking it all for granted.

Tobias was a good guy. Always had something intelligent to say and a clever way of saying it. He had a perspective that stood out. He was witty and insightful and took a lot of pride in his analysis. I didn’t tell him any of this because nobody does that sort of thing. We all just assume we’ll see each other later, next week, next month, next year, next conference, next greenroom. That’s why we don’t give people their flowers while they’re around to receive them. The flowers come after the fact. It’s unfortunate. I want to try to be better about telling people I appreciate them while they’re around. Because who the hell knows.

You can read more about him here at Bloomberg. My condolences go out to his family and close friends.