A great week and some remarkable success stories: Your Weekly Update

It was a very successful week for the markets last week, capped by a thoroughly solid employment report. We detail it in this week’s Update.

We also were inspired last week (and every week) by the success stories of some of our great clients. Since we can’t share those stories for reasons of confidentiality, we decided to share some other success stories that inspire us. As non-recovering optimists, we just can’t help ourselves.

Please let us know if you enjoy them. But, better yet, let us know of some we might have missed via return email. Oh yes, and pass these stories along to those who might enjoy a little inspiration this week!**

All the best,
Lee and Jeremy


This Week’s Quote:

“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
~ Michael Jordan


JL Davis Thoughts This Week:

At JL Davis, we just love success stories. Over our 30 plus years in business, we’ve witnessed plenty of them first hand--those of our terrific clients and their companies. What a wonderful “side benefit” to our occupation! We’ve noticed that remarkable people seem to make a habit of overcoming obstacles and turning a deaf ear to those who might take a dim view of them or their ideas. They reject negativity and forge ahead. And they tend to win.

We apologize in advance if this missive should reach our various English teachers, who might take umbrage at the length of the next paragraph and/or its sentence structure. We wrote it with an eye toward saving paper while inspiring our readers…and ourselves.

• Paul Allen and Bill Gates (a Harvard dropout) failed miserably in their first company, Traf-O-Data but seem to have had better luck with Microsoft.
• In his lifetime, Socrates was dubbed "an immoral corrupter of youth" yet today is roundly considered one of the greatest philosophers of all time.
• Abraham Lincoln went to war a Captain, and returned a Private, then suffered serial political defeats and failed businesses prior to becoming arguably the greatest U.S. President in history.
• A plump, vociferous English boy failed the sixth grade, then as an adult was defeated for almost every public office he ran for, yet Winston Churchill finally became British prime minister at age 62.
• Schoolboy Thomas Edison was told he was "too stupid to learn anything" yet in later life went on to develop over 1000 light bulb prototypes, including one that actually worked.
• More than 1,000 restaurants rejected his chicken recipe before Harland Sanders could find the one who would accept it—KFC.
• Macy’s founder, R.H. Macy, had a string of failing businesses, including one in New York which ultimately became the biggest department store in the world—and a huge success.
• The venerable University of Southern California rejected then potential student, Steven Spielberg not once, but three times before he went elsewhere for his education and became the highest grossing movie director of all time.
• Studio executives labeled Charlie Chaplin's act “too obscure for people to understand” before he became the comedic icon of his era.
• Columbia Pictures told Norma Jean Mortenson she wasn't pretty or talented enough to be an actress and let her contract expire before the woman we know as Marilyn Monroe became a star whose image is still selling some 50 years after her sad passing.
• Long before developing one of the most loved TV sitcoms in history, Jerry Seinfeld was booed off the stage by a jeering crowd in his very first engagement.
• Toyota passed over Soichiro Honda for an engineering job, prompting him to start his own company making motorcycles (and plenty more).
• Akio Morita’s company, Sony, kicked their product line off with a rice cooker that routinely burnt the rice and sold fewer than 100 units before developing cutting edge, elegant products, then becoming known worldwide for uncompromising quality, and making him a billionaire.
• A young Vera Wang failed to make the U.S. Olympic figure-skating team and was passed over for editor in chief at Vogue before she became one of the premier evening and wedding gown designers in the world.
• A newspaper editor fired Walt Disney because he "lacked imagination and had no good ideas" – the same imagination that later produced Mickey Mouse and Disneyland.
• Sir Isaac Newton was a miserable failure running the family farm before finding his calling in Physics at Cambridge University.
• Albert Einstein didn't speak until age four, couldn’t read until age seven, endured teachers who labeled him "slow" and "mentally handicapped” yet went on to win the Nobel Prize while developing the Unified Theory of Relativity.
• In 1954, the icon we know as Elvis Presley was fired by Grand Ole Opry manager Jimmy Denny with the words, "You ain't goin' nowhere, son…You ought to go back to drivin' a truck."
• Vincent Van Gogh reportedly sold but one of his 800 paintings during his entire life (to a friend) but today his works are priceless.
• Dr. Seuss' first book garnered rejection slips from nearly 30 publishers, yet he's the one of the most popular children's book authors ever.
• J.K. Rowling was a divorced, unemployed “wannabe” author raising her daughter on social security while penning the first Harry Potter novel, a literary franchise that earned her over a billion dollars.
• Stephen King pitched the manuscript for his first novel, Carrie, in the trash before it was retrieved by his wife and before his subsequent 49 novels sold 350 million copies.
• Henry Ford's first auto company went out of business; he abandoned his second; his third went downhill due to declining sales before Ford “gained traction” and his company would become the world’s dominant auto maker.
• James Dyson developed 5,126 failed prototypes, spending all his savings before developing world renowned Dyson Vacuums, the biggest selling vacuum line on Earth.

We could go on, but you’ve got work to do! Here’s to you and here’s to those like the folks above who just keep on keeping on! Have a great week.**

Lee and Jeremy

http://www.onlinecollege.org/2010/02/16/50-famously-successful-people-who-failed-at-first/
http://www.businessinsider.com/26-successful-people-who-failed-at-first-2012-7?op=1


Market Week: July 8, 2013

The Markets

Domestic equities' recovery from their June swoon accelerated last week. However, bond values continued to take it on the chin as the 10-year Treasury yield soared after Friday's benign unemployment numbers. Gold also plummeted after the jobs report; the precious metal's almost $40 loss for the day left its price at roughly $1,213 an ounce. And the threat that Egypt's civil unrest could potentially affect oil supplies sent oil prices above $103 a barrel.


Last Week's Headlines

• The U.S. economy added 195,000 jobs in June, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates for April and May were revised upward. However, because more people tried to rejoin the workforce, the BLS said the unemployment rate stayed stuck at 7.6%.
• Faced with a political crisis in debt-ridden Portugal, the European Central Bank said it plans to continue to keep its key interest rate there at a record low 0.5% for "an extended period," though there were discussions about whether to set it even lower. The Bank of England also will keep its benchmark rate at 0.5%.
• The Institute for Supply Management's June gauge of manufacturing activity reversed three months of declines, rising almost 1% above the 50% level that marks the difference between contraction and expansion. The manufacturing index has averaged roughly 50.2% for the last three months. The ISM's index of the services sector also showed growth in June, though the 52.2% reading was slightly lower than May's figure.
• Spending on residential construction rose 0.5% in May, and the Commerce Department said it is now 5.4% higher than last May. Private construction remained roughly the same as in April, while nonresidential construction declined 1.4%. Public construction was up 1.8%, with power and water supply facilities seeing the biggest gains.
• The Commerce Department also had good news from the nation's manufacturers: factory orders were up 2.1% in May. An increase of almost 51% in commercial aircraft orders represented much of the increase, but business spending on equipment also rose by 1.5%.
• The U.S. trade deficit rose more than 12% in May as imports rose and exports fell, according to the Commerce Department. That put the trade gap at $45 billion, its widest point since last November.
• Interest rates on federally subsidized Stafford student loans went from 3.4% to 6.8% on July 1. However, Congress may tackle the issue again after the July 4 recess is over, and any change in the new rate could be applied retroactively.


Eye on the Week Ahead

Given the reaction to the Fed's June 19 announcement indicating an improving economy (and therefore implying a possible reduction in Fed support), minutes of that meeting will be closely scrutinized for any further clues to the timing of any withdrawal of quantitative easing. With little other economic data to mull over, investors may begin to focus on corporate earnings; the unofficial start of the Q2 earnings season will occur when Alcoa releases its results after Monday's close.

Key dates and data releases: Federal Open Market Committee minutes (7/10); wholesale inflation (7/12).

Data sources: Includes data provided by Brounes & Associates. All information is based on sources deemed reliable, but no warranty or guarantee is made as to its accuracy or completeness. Neither the information nor any opinion expressed herein constitutes a solicitation for the purchase or sale of any securities, and should not be relied on as financial advice. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is a price-weighted index composed of 30 widely traded blue-chip U.S. common stocks. The S&P 500 is a market-cap weighted index composed of the common stocks of 500 leading companies in leading industries of the U.S. economy. The NASDAQ Composite Index is a market-value weighted index of all common stocks listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange. The Russell 2000 is a market-cap weighted index composed of 2000 U.S. small-cap common stocks. The Global Dow is an equally weighted index of 150 widely traded blue-chip common stocks worldwide. Market indexes listed are unmanaged and are not available for direct investment.

Prepared by Lee Davis** and Broadridge Investor Communication Solutions, Inc. Copyright 2013