A Message From Prudent Management Associates
To our valued clients:
As you may be aware, Pennsylvania Governor Wolf issued an Order on March 19 requiring that all “non life sustaining businesses” in Pennsylvania close their physical locations as of 8PM that night. The Order did not contain an end date but in comments announcing its issuance Governor Wolf stated he anticipated it lasting for at least two weeks, according to news reports.
Accordingly, PMA has moved its operations from its office site at 1735 Market Street to remote locations staffed by PMA personnel at their homes. We ran operations in this manner on March 20 (having engaged in prior testing of remote capacities) and did not experience any disruption in our normal processes. We are in regular contact with each other and with clients, have access to all PMA data and resources, and continue to follow market developments closely.
Phone calls to our main line, 215-994-1062, will be redirected to the cell phone of a PMA employee who will be available from 9:00AM to 5:00PM, Monday-Friday. If the call goes into voicemail please leave a message and it will be retrieved as soon as possible. All mail is currently being delivered to the home of a PMA employee and we have been notified by Federal Express that it will do the same with Federal Express packages (such deliveries will continue unless restricted by authorities).
The email addresses of PMA professionals are as follows:
Our views on current markets were, we believe, expressed as best as we can in our prior special email messages sent on February 27 and March 6, 2020, as well as in our March cover letter to our clients, all of which are available on our website here and here.
We are in difficult and unfortunate circumstances but history and studies have shown that when markets rebound from unpleasant declines is not predictable in advance, and that missing a very few days of the rebound when it occurs has an adverse effect on a portfolio’s performance. As said by Charlie Munger, the partner of Warren Buffett, being able “to react with equanimity” to large equity declines is “in the nature of long term shareholding.” We agree, but we also agree that being able to sleep at night is important, and that If this wrenching experience is causing you to question the risk portfolio you are in, we encourage you to reach out to us, as suggested in our March cover letter, cited above.
