Happy Holidays

posted by   Ian Wyatt   |    December 29, 2008

Posted in   Vermont Living   |   Comments

Happy holidays to all friends, family, colleagues, and partners who read my blog.

2008 has been a challenging year as an individual investor and an entrepreneur leading a company that is in the financial media sector.

The extent of the housing market collapse and subprime mess caught almost everyone off guard, myself included. Like many investors, I knew that housing was overpriced (one of the reasons I held back on buying a condo in DC in recent years), and thought that prices would decline after five years of +20% annual appreciation in hot markets like Washington DC where my company is based. What I didn't realize was the widespread effect that this would ultimately have on the overall economy and the stock market. Predicting crisis like this isn't easy to do, and very few people correctly called this recession. If you're looking for some good reading on the housing crisis and the collapse of investment banks, check out "The End" by Michael Lewis in the recent issue of Conde Naste's Portfolio Magazine.

Everyone knows that media companies have been having a difficult year with pullbacks in advertising spending (even in the online channel, which represents the bulk of our business). And the fact that we're a media company in the financial / investment category makes things even more difficult, as individual investors are becoming less responsive to advertisements selling them investment services. All in all, it has been a challenging year as an entrepreneur and investor. Too bad we can't simply turn back the clock and have another 2007 all over again.

This year has been incredibly rewarding personally. Carrie and I were married in October, and have enjoyed the first few months of married life. We spent three weeks in October on honeymoon in Italy, followed by two weeks at Thanksgiving in Washington and Oregon visiting family.

Carrie and I have been having a wonderful Christmas at our home in the Green Mountains in Vermont, enjoying the holiday with my parents and sister (my brother couldn't make it home from China for the holidays). The weather has been typical of Vermont at this time of the year - cold and lots of snow, followed by warm days and rain when the temp rose to 55 degrees yesterday, melting the 18" of snow we had on the ground earlier this month. I'm a bit bummed that we didn't get out skiing when the snow was good, but hoping to hit Sugarbush later this week. We're expecting eight friends from Washington DC and Chicago for New Years at our home in Vermont.

I look forward to connecting in 2009. Happy New Year!

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