Blog Introduction

Dear Friends,

For many years we have all seen Blogs by sports personalities, politicians, financial gurus, technical people, artist and performers. In the investment business, I see Blogs every day and read a few myself. Although I am not a literary expert, I am amused and amazed by what I read. Nearly every day I read something that I believe has merit for my friends and clients, but may have been presented in a technical manner that is difficult to understand or topics that may not apply. So, I have decided to write a blog that will be a little different, maybe a cross between Ann Landers (yes, I am dating myself) and Mohammed El-Erian, Chief Economist for Allianz. My goal is to write about finances and how it could affect you and your family economically. Sometimes I will include some personal anecdotes and maybe some inner secrets about me. I like to use personal stories to make a point and to occasionally tell about my mistakes, so you won’t suffer the same misfortune.

Now, read the subject line BullBearPen.com, I want to provide some background to the BLOG Title.

Many of you know that as a younger man I had a special talent to throw a baseball with more velocity than most kids. This was a special god given talent and not one that you can teach. In high school from my freshman year onward I played on the varsity baseball team. When I reached college, West Virginia University, I was the first freshman to play on the varsity team. Today freshman regularly play on the varsity team, but not then. After college, I pitched in the NY Mets organization for three years and in 1973 went to Spring Training with the “Big Club”. After an injury, I finished my career in the AA Texas League and suffered a torn rotator cuff which ended my career.

There are many stories that go along with being a young man in professional baseball but that will be kept for later if you’d like to have a beer together. During the off-season, I attended graduate school at George Washington University in Information Technology. That was pre-personal computers and was during a time of punch cards and hanging chads. Little did I know that computers would be carried around in your hand and compute mathematical problems in milli-seconds that one time took hours of computer capacity. While in graduate school I decided to minor in Finance. And lo and behold I ended up in the investment advisory business.

Now Rick, why are you telling me this (sometimes I may speak in the 3rd person just to make it interesting, for me at least)? The BLOG name BullBearPen has multiple themes. One, as a pitcher we sat in the Bullpen when not pitching waiting our turn. I think the Bull Pen was named for the stories told, lots of Bull. BullBear is obvious with the stock market, a Bull Market and a Bear Market. And Bull, isn’t that what I am writing, some bull. And Pen, or the use of a pen to write. My intention is to keep the BLOG short so not to bore you and to make it topical.

There will be no politics, nor religion, nor racy topics, that is unless it is a topic that applies to your economic well-being.

You will be welcome to pass it along to your friends and family. In addition to myself writing and stealing other financial advisors stuff, I will have other partners contribute to my Blog. I will keep the Blogs short and sweet.

So, stay tuned.

Richard H. Wagener, CFP^®
Managing Partner