The market has fallen 30% from its highs in only 27 days. The country is shutting down and isolating itself. The pain, fear, and emotions that our country is going through is real and hard. We all know that investing is a marathon not a sprint. But the pain and fear within that marathon has us all asking… What do we do now? Should we sell our stocks? Should we buy gold? Should we quit? Should we keep going? In today’s podcast we are joined by our friend and colleague Jed DeVries. He shares his insights of going through difficult times during real ultra-marathons. The heartache, the fear, the wanting to quit, the actual quitting and the actual finishing and joy that comes from it are the topics of the today’s podcast. If there was a podcast to listen to at a perfect time to listen to it, it is
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OUR We spent Wednesday making the rounds to say goodbye to all the women at the aftercare facilities. Luckily, we only had two lessons remaining, so we were able to teach them the last lesson and have them graduate from the course before we left. We awarded each of them with a certificate of completion from Utah State University. They were so proud of themselves and treated their certificates with so much care. Most of them propped their certificates up in front of their work space to put it on display. Saying goodbye to all of them was so hard, but it was a perfect way end our time here. It’s incredible how much we have grown to love them in such little time. One of the women, gave me a hug and put her hand on my belly and said “Mira Kana” or look Kenna – a lot of
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Last week we got horrible news that, due to the corona virus, we are being sent back to Utah prematurely from our internship here in the Dominican Republic. We are part of a worldwide program and they are concerned that if the virus continues to spread, borders could close, and we would not be able to return to the United States. Because of this concern and many more, our directors have decided to take us out of country. We will be leaving the DR on March 15th. Although we are devastated that we must leave, we are happy to have a couple of days to wrap things up with the amazing people we are teaching. On Tuesday morning we went to Annamaria’s to help her paint her house. Annamaria sells pet fish out of her home but found that people weren’t familiar with her business because there was no way
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Earlier this week we sent out a letter to our clients discussing the market chaos that is occurring. Well, the chaos has continued! The market as it stands today is down 20% off its highs. Warren Buffett famously said, “it wise to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.” Fear right now in the market is approaching 2008 levels. The CNN Fear and Greed index (shown below) is at a level of “extreme fear.” So how do you actually go about doing what Warren Buffett famously said?                     In today’s podcast we address the fear that many are feeling right now. We address the idea of moving into cash and selling your stocks and why that strategy isn’t a successful one. We then discuss several things that people should consider right now, including refinancing a mortgage,
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This week was Independence Day in the Dominican Republic. We spend the day exploring the capital, visiting historical sites and taking part in various celebrations. This week we also met a Colombian woman named Ruth. She has lived in the Dominican Republic for less than a year and recently married a Dominican man. She left a sick mother and her two adult sons back in Columbia when she came to the DR to find a better life for herself. A couple years ago, Ruth was a successful business owner living in Columbia with her two sons, who were attending college. Her dream was to own a home and fix it up just how she liked. One day her oldest son came home from classes and said he saw an incredibly low price on a beautiful home in the next town over. She couldn’t believe that the home was priced so
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  This week was Sydney and Josh’s birthdays. On Sydney’s birthday we visited one of the safehouses. To celebrate her birthday, we brought all the women chocolate chip cookies. They were stoked out of their minds! They couldn’t get enough and kept asking us for the recipe. We sheepishly replied that we had bought the mix from the store. When the women found out that it was Syd’s birthday, they immediately began singing and gave her a brand-new hairbrush as a gift. They also gave her stones that they had painted for a craft activity. Although they didn’t have much to give her, it was so cute as they all surrounded her, hugged and gave her what they had to offer. As we were leaving, one of the women came up to me and said, “each one of us has so much love in our hearts for all of you.”
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The market is down 8% since hitting all-time highs on February 19th. The past two days have been volatile to say the least. The big global worry – the Coronavirus. In today’s podcast we discuss the Coronavirus, it’s impact, and what investors should do. When the market is trading at all-time highs, everyone is cheering for a market correction (pullback) so they can buy great businesses at cheaper prices. Then when that correction comes, the reaction emotionally different. Listen to this important podcast to understand exactly what you should be doing and thinking. Here’s to wise investing, Brian, Brett and the rest of the Iron Gate Family     The commentary on this program reflects the personal opinions, viewpoints and analyses of the Iron Gate Global Advisors, LLC employees providing such comments, and should not be regarded as a description of advisory services provided by Iron Gate Global Advisors, LLC
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  ¡Que lo que! Que lo que (What the what?) is the most popular slang phrase from the Dominican Republic. People use it to greet others, like “what’s up”. Jose Antonio (the man that is starting a natural juice business) is doing great! We now have a logo designed for his business and he is working towards a weekly savings plan so that he can buy a blender. He is such a hard worker. Every time we meet with him, his pulls out his notebook full of questions and comments. Last week his homework was to talk to two potential customers within a couple of days to see if they would be interested in becoming clients of his new business. Jose went above and beyond and talked to almost twenty different stores and solidified six of them as clients. He is so eager to learn and loves what we are
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With the market making all time highs seemingly every week, we’ve been asked, “When is the market going to crash?” Our immediate answer focuses on two things – No one knows when the market is going to crash. It might happen when we see excesses in the market. In this week’s podcast we discuss how excesses in the market (also known as euphoria) might be the one thing to cause the next downturn. We look back at history, the late 90’s and 2007 – 2008 to discuss what happened when excesses caused the market to crash and how indexing certainly was not the best answer. We discuss not only the excesses, but more importantly, What did we do about it back then? What are we going to do about it now? Here’s to wise investing, Iron Gate Global Advisors – SPECIAL IGGA UPDATE –  You may have noticed some different
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Week 2: Our Guardian Angels: The Dominicans We made it another week! We absolutely love it here. With temperatures in the 90-95°F range and 100% humidity, the freezing cold showers are something we have come to look forward to. The people here tell us we are just starting the hot season; I don’t know how much hotter it can get before we literally melt (no wonder countries like the Dominican Republic have record Coca-Cola intake levels – there is nothing better on a hot day.) Although the Dominican Republic has uncomfortably hot weather, the people make up for it. We are constantly impressed and extremely grateful for the generosity and kindness of the Dominican people. Part of our program includes traveling long distances almost every day to new places. Although we are unfamiliar with the country, we get on buses with complete confidence that someone will take care of us
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