Acceleration

Some weeks it feels as though a year has just occurred. There’s some serious acceleration going on at the shop, and it’s really exciting to be a part of.

At the outset of the week, Kris, Ben and Barry were out in Austin and then Houston visiting with Ritholtz Wealth Management clients and seeing some potential new clients all over town.

The fact that we can go to cities all over America and find people who are appreciative of our message and investment ethos is really cool. I never could have imagined it when I first started blogging back in the day.

In the meanwhile, back east, I got the chance to tape the Michael Kitces podcast on Monday, which goes out to tens of thousands of financial advisors. My episode airs in mid-April I think. We talked for 75 minutes about the story of our firm and how we’re working every day. I hope I said at least a few smart things that make the edit. Michael has had all the the hitters on, I’m honored to be a part of it.

This Wednesday, I woke up to see that my Twitter account had broken 500,000 followers. This is a ridiculous milestone, something I didn’t expect to see for years and years, if ever. Now I’m paranoid that every tweet I send might not be good enough. Mo follows, mo problems 😉

On Thursday morning I addressed an audience of “gatekeepers” for the mutual fund industry at Citywire USA’s 2017 retreat at the Sofitel NYC. I got to discuss my theories about systematic vs faith-based investing at length. We talked about the robots, the fiduciary standard, post-crisis attitudes toward human money managers, the shift of assets from traditional brokerage toward investment advisory, the low-cost and passive revolution, the boom in web content about investing and how all of these trends are inter-related. It was fun, great feedback.

Last night, Michael Batnick collected the Best Twitter Account in Finance trophy at the inaugural Cashtag Awards in Manhattan. I accepted the award for Best Use of Social Media By An Investment Advisor trophy on behalf of the whole firm. I also got to sit down with Howard Lindzon for a fireside chat that closed out the day’s events. It was an insane discussion that focused on the boom in slime making, which my kids (and kids around the country) are obsessed with.

While that was going on at Guastavino’s on East 59th Street, my partners Barry and Kris were across town on Vescey Street accepting the ETF Advisor of the Year Award from ETF.com. According to the show’s program:

Ritholtz Wealth Management: Led by the inimitable Barry Ritholtz and Josh Brown, Ritholtz Wealth offers steady ETF-focused portfolios to a growing client list. Nominations noted the “huge role” the firm plays in the media and its recent decision to reward clients who “don’t monkey around with their portfolios” by lowering fees for clients with good behavior.

We’re really proud of this one. I wish I could have been in both places at once, but we were well represented there. Thanks so much to the StockTwits community and to ETF.com for the recognition of what we’re doing. It’s amazing to be cited by our peers for the work we are doing, means a lot to all of us.

What a week!

And now, some pics (click to enlarge the gallery):