Susan B. Weiner's Blog, page 2

Ideal quarterly investment letters: Meaningful, specific, and short

Investment managers’ quarterly investment letters should be meaningful to clients, specific to the manager, and short. These are the key conclusions I drew from my quarterly investment letter survey that I conducted some years ago. I believe these conclusions still apply.

Meaningful content

“Clarity,” “insight,” and “candor” were the most popular answers to the question, “What’s the ONE WORD that best describes what investment managers should strive for in their quarterly letters to clients?” I think these popular answers can be summed up by the term “meaningful content.”

The image below gives a visual overview of the responses. Type size is proportional to the number of respondents choosing a word as their answer.

 

Here are examples of how respondents explained their word choices.

“Clarity” suggests that you have done the reading, research, analysis and due diligence on what you’ve taken in. You have synthesized it. Rather than repeating a litany of what you’ve read, you provide a simple summary of what key points you commend to their attention and why.Clarity. Clients appreciate honesty, and the best way to demonstrate honesty is to be clear in what you are saying. Always consider the client’s perspective. Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself what is important / relevant, and how you would want it shown. And be honest with your answers.Candid. Warren Buffet discusses both types of investment – the ones that made money and ones where he lost – candidly.Clarity – The world and financial markets are very dynamic, intertwined, and complex. The ability of an investment manager to take seemingly disparate and complex topics and distill them down to an explainable relationship, etc is rare but very value-added.Needs to reflect the voice of the investment team not marketing fluff.Relevance – As a customer, it’s about my money, my future, my family, it’s not about your strategy, your brilliance, your research department. I need to know: Can I count on you?Content specific to the manager

The survey asked respondents to specify whether various letter components were very important, important, somewhat important, unimportant, or not applicable. Respondents placed the highest importance on the manager’s investment strategy and review of the past quarter’s portfolio performance. Here’s the rank order:

Manager’s investment strategyReview of the past quarter’s portfolio performanceManager’s market outlookGraphs, tables, or other illustrationsClient-specific portfolio returnsStock-specific or security-specific commentsSector-level strategyReview of the past quarter’s market and economySomething not listed above

These results say to me that readers want content they couldn’t read elsewhere.

Here are some relevant responses:

The investments are a commodity…the client bought the firm and that brand should be consistently presented in all interactions.What is missing in the vast majority of reports from managers is any genuine clue as to how and why they made/lost money. Market or asset class reviews or forecasts and returns summaries are ultimately meaningless if the manager doesn’t understand the drivers of his return. I like to see a thorough and genuinely insightful “attributions analysis” that makes it plain to the reader that the manager knows precisely why/how/where the money was made.Needs to be something more than what I get from Bloomberg or WSJ commentary. I want to understand their outlook, and how that shapes their strategy.Manager should include “what went right, what went wrong” during the quarter relative to investment performance. In other words, performance attribution at a high level.Keep it short

More than 40% of respondents thought a quarterly investment letter should run two pages or less. A length of five pages or more was the least popular response, as you can see in the graph below.

Respondents favor shorter letters that are reader-friendly, as the comments below show.

Investors want you to tell them what THEY need to know, not everything YOU know!I read a lot of quarterly letters, and I selfishly would like to be able to pull out the important nugget(s) quickly. More importantly, as an investment advisor I know that my clients will not put a lot of time into reading these letters. If they look long and boring, they simply won’t bother.As an investment manager researcher, I read numerous quarterly commentaries from our sub advisors. The managers that are able to deliver the highlights clearly and in a concise manner stand out because they are better able to communicate their message to me and our clients.In my experience in investment communications, I’ve learned that less can be more. Get to the point quickly! Most financial advisors (and investors) don’t have much time to read and are in a state of information overload. Many receiving a 3-page commentary will put it in their “read later” pile (meaning it may never be read). However, if they received a shorter commentary (1-page would be ideal), they might read it upon receipt, getting information in a much more timely manner.People are busy and finance isn’t always the easiest or most scintillating topic; keep it short and sweet so you can keep your clients engaged and informed, Value their time.After three pages, most people get bored Make it personal

It’s not easy to make quarterly letters feel personal and customized without spending lots of time on them. Some of the techniques that respondents suggested for achieving this included:

Using “you”Integrating data from portfolio accountingKnow the type of client that is attracted to your investment strategy and speak to that client’s biases and need for information.Answer the question, what is in it for them? Comfort them? Encourage them?Add a personal note within the body of the letter. “I took my son shopping for school supplies and Walmart…” and if there is an investment tie-in, so much the better.Include  a personal touch regardless of how long it takes. These clients give us their hard earned money to manage and we should take time to report to them.Well-written

A number of comments supported my belief that letters should be well written.

I’m busy and I read a lot of investment letters, I don’t have time to reread investment letters in an effort to understand what the manager is really trying to tell me. I want a straightforward letter that I only have to read once to understand.You must write to the level of the average individual, not at a level that will impress your peers. Your clients would not be working with you if they did not believe you are intelligent…you don’t have to show them how intelligent you are by spewing out words that fly over their heads. If you want personalized and relevant letters, you must bring yourself to their level.I try to speak in my natural voice, rather than a “writing” voice. I also find that humor and self-deprecation (on non-professional issues) resonate with clients.Thank you, CFA Institute LinkedIn Group members and other respondents!

I am very grateful to all of the people who responded. Your comments made this topic come alive. I wish I could have included more of them.

I believe most of the survey respondents are financial or marketing professionals, but I didn’t collect their demographics. However, I suspect that members of two of my LinkedIn Groups–CFA Institute Members and Financial Writing/Marketing Communications–were particularly generous with their contributions.

 

Note: This post originally appeared in 2021 and was edited on June 1, 2014, and June 18, 2024.

The post Ideal quarterly investment letters: Meaningful, specific, and short appeared first on Susan Weiner Investment Writing.

JUNE NEWSLETTER: Edit your quarterly commentary using this process!

Do you want your quarterly commentary to shine? Polish it using the process that I describe in “5 steps for rewriting your investment commentary.” This is how I edit my clients’ work.

The main idea is to start editing at the big picture level and then work down to more specific elements of your commentary. This saves you from spending a lot of time on information that ultimately gets cut from your piece.

You can learn a lot more about the specifics of my writing process in Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients.

Get Google’s help removing your personal data from the internet

Google’s “Results about you” tool can help you remove some of your personal information from the internet. I tried it and got some information removed.

Learn more from “ by Zak Doffman on Forbes.

Keyboarding on the go

People always comment when I use this compact multi-device wireless keyboard from Logitech to take notes on my phone at conferences. I love its cradle to hold my phone upright so I can follow along as I type.

You can use this keyboard with three different devices. Simply turn the dial to select the device that you’ve connected earlier via Bluetooth.

I use this keyboard almost daily with my personal computer because I like its narrow width. The batteries last a very long time.

Pumpkin pie smoothie

I like smoothies. My standard is a smoothie made with banana, peanut butter powder, and milk.

However, sometimes I go a little wild. Like when I made the KaleJunkie.com’s tasty smoothie recipe described in “My Favorite Pumpkin Pie Smoothie.” I also enjoyed her “Pumpkin Pie Overnight Oats.”

Hellebores

I love hellebores, one of the first plants to flower in the spring. But I’m frustrated by how their heads hang down, concealing their beauty.  That’s why I sometimes cut off some flowers and float them in a bowl, as you see in my photo.

 

 

 

What my clients say about me

“Fast, effective, insightful. I can think of no better resource for superior financial writing.”

“Susan has an exceptional ability to tailor investment communications to the sophistication level of any audience. She has an uncanny ability to make very complex investment and/or economic topics accessible and understandable to anyone.”

“Susan’s particularly good at working through highly technical material very quickly. That’s very important in this business. A lot of people are good writers, but they have an extensive learning curve for something they’re unfamiliar with. Susan was able to jump very quickly into technical material.”

Read more testimonials!

Improve your investment commentary

Attract more clients, prospects, and referral sources by improving your investment commentary with 44 pages of the best tips from the InvestmentWriting.com blog.

Tips include how to organize your thoughts, edit for the “big picture,” edit line by line, and get more mileage out of your commentary.

Available in PDF format for only $9.99. Email me to buy it now!

Boost your blogging now!

Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients is available for purchase as a PDF ($39) or a paperback ($49, affiliate link).

 

The post JUNE NEWSLETTER: Edit your quarterly commentary using this process! appeared first on Susan Weiner Investment Writing.

MISTAKE MONDAY for May 26: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?

Can you spot what’s wrong in the image below? Please post your answer as a comment.

 

 

 

Want a clue to this week’s big mistake? Read my post on “Bloggers’ top two punctuation mistakes.” It doesn’t discuss this exact mistake, but it’ll point you in the right direction.

I post these challenges to raise awareness of the importance of proofreading. I make mistakes, too. Mistake Monday keeps me vigilant. After all, I don’t want to make any more mistakes worthy of posting here.

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Quit underlining headings in your documents!

Underlining headings in your written documents used to be common. That’s no longer true, especially because underlined text now leads people to expect hyperlinks.

Underlining headings dates back to the days of typewriters. As Practical Typography says,

Underlining is another dreary typewriter habit. Typewriters had no bold or italic styling. So the only way to emphasize text was to back up the carriage and type underscores be­neath the text. It was a workaround for shortcomings in typewriter technology.

Please stop underlining headings, unless you want to prove that you’re old-fashioned.

Old vs. new style of headings

Sample 1

This is what headings and text sometimes looked like in the old days:

Heading

This is the text under the heading.

Sample 2

Here’s an easy, more modern style of heading:

Heading

This is the text under the heading.

When you compare Sample 1 with Sample 2, which makes it easier for you to focus on the heading? It’s Sample 2.

That ease is important in encouraging readers to skim—rather than abandon—your content. That’s important now that everyone’s attention spans have shortened. If they continue skimming, perhaps they’ll find a heading that tempts them to dig into the details of what you’ve written.

Use heading styles built into your software

If you only have one level of headings in your document, it’s easy to make them all bold. But what if you have different levels of headings? You’re most likely to need multiple levels in a long document like a white paper.

Different heading styles are built into many types of software.

For example, here is one style you can find in Microsoft Word’s ribbon:

 

 

Here’s what these styles might look like in a document:

 

You can learn more about using styles in Microsoft Word on Microsoft’s help page, starting with “Show or hide the ribbon in Office.” (Depending on your version of Word, your steps to find and apply headings may differ.)

Styles can get pretty fancy, but I tend to stick with the basics. I prefer to devote more time to writing than design.

Microsoft Office isn’t the only software with different styles for headings. You’ll also find them in WordPress. Here’s an explanation of headings in WordPress.

 

The post Quit underlining headings in your documents! appeared first on Susan Weiner Investment Writing.

MAY NEWSLETTER: AI prompts for content marketing

AI prompts for content marketers

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in content marketing is increasing. I’m not a big fan of AI, but I realize that it can be useful.

If you’d like to experiment with AI in your content marketing, check out Andy Crestodina’s “The Prompt Library Starter Kit,” recommended by my fabulous copywriter friend Robyn Bradley.

Crestodina covers topics such as “personal generation using AI,” “audience research,” “content marketing mission statement and CTA,” and much more.

Check it out!

When the going gets tough

A friend shared the following “Four things to tell yourself when the going gets tough”:

This has happened beforeFailure is the path to successThis won’t matter nearly as much in five yearsI live according to my values

She said it came from Inc. magazine, but I can’t find the original article. I did, however, find a related article: “5 Ways to Stay Positive When the Going Gets Tough.”

Do you know when your article is finished?

The following line by novelist Hilary Mantel caught my eye because it speaks to the difficulty of knowing when you should stop rewriting or editing your work: “…unfortunately, for writers, there’s no intellectual equivalent of the sexual climax; they don’t always know when they’ve finished.”

The line appears in Mantel’s A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing, a collection of essays. Some of her essays were quite interesting, but I skipped over many others.

Microsoft Word shortcuts

I found this list of Microsoft Word shortcuts on LinkedIn. It covers shortcuts for text and formatting, navigation and editing, and document management, plus some shortcuts it deems “lawyer-specific” that might still benefit the rest of us.

So at the start of a sentence

When you start a sentence with “so,” must you follow it with a comma? There are two schools of thought, as I explain in this post.

What the heck’s a “manicule”?

If you know or care about the answer to my questions about the manicule, read “The Secret History of the Manicule, the Little Hand that’s Everywhere.” I must thank Wendy Cook, another fabulous friend, for this link.

What my clients say about me

“Fast, effective, insightful. I can think of no better resource for superior financial writing.”

“Susan has an exceptional ability to tailor investment communications to the sophistication level of any audience. She has an uncanny ability to make very complex investment and/or economic topics accessible and understandable to anyone.”

“Susan’s particularly good at working through highly technical material very quickly. That’s very important in this business. A lot of people are good writers, but they have an extensive learning curve for something they’re unfamiliar with. Susan was able to jump very quickly into technical material.”

Read more testimonials!

Improve your investment commentary

Attract more clients, prospects, and referral sources by improving your investment commentary with 44 pages of the best tips from the InvestmentWriting.com blog.

Tips include how to organize your thoughts, edit for the “big picture,” edit line by line, and get more mileage out of your commentary.

Available in PDF format for only $9.99. Email me to buy it now!

Boost your blogging now!

Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients is available for purchase as a PDF ($39) or a paperback ($49, affiliate link).

 

The post MAY NEWSLETTER: AI prompts for content marketing appeared first on Susan Weiner Investment Writing.

MISTAKE MONDAY for April 28: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?

Can you spot what’s wrong in the image below? Please post your answer as a comment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once again, here’s an error in a major newspaper. I suspect that text, such as headlines and captions, that isn’t written by the reporter may be particularly prone to becoming fodder for Mistake Monday. Do YOU have a theory explaining these errors?

I post these challenges to raise awareness of the importance of proofreading. I still struggle with proofreading my own work.

The post MISTAKE MONDAY for April 28: Can YOU spot what’s wrong? appeared first on Susan Weiner Investment Writing.

APRIL NEWSLETTER: Help for identifying best practices

Everyone wants to use best practices. But how do you identify the best practices for your situation?

Tom Brakke of The Investment Ecosystem blog shares a simple exercise that you can do. In “Common Practices, Best Practices, and Next Practices,” he suggests that you ask, “How would you describe what you do in comparison to the standards that are prevalent across the industry in like positions and situations?”

You can organize your responses into three columns:

Common practicesBest practicesNext practices

I like the simplicity of the three columns.

I also like the idea of striving for “next practices.” Brakke says,

Innovative organizations are constantly working to improve their methods. Identifying next practices and working toward them (while knowing that some won’t come to fruition) is part of their DNA.

Brakke publishes free e-newsletters so you can receive his ideas in your inbox.

Mice or mouses?

What do you call more than one computer mouse? Read “Computer mice or mouses? It’s a case of irregular plurals” for some expert opinions.

For my part, I’ll continue to try to avoid referring to the plural of this device.

Protect your personal data from Meta

Want to limit the ability of Meta, Facebook’s parent company, to monetize your data? The Electronic Frontier Foundation offers practical advice in “Mad at Meta? Don’t Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data.”

Egg substitutes for baking

If you’re interested in working around high egg prices, check out “No eggs? Here’s your guide for substituting” on the King Arthur Baking website. I’ve had good luck using “flax eggs” in pancakes and banana bread.

My best tip for improving your investment commentary

If you’re frustrated by your lack of results from publishing your investment commentary, read “My best tip for improving your investment commentary.”

What my clients say about me

“Fast, effective, insightful. I can think of no better resource for superior financial writing.”

“Susan has an exceptional ability to tailor investment communications to the sophistication level of any audience. She has an uncanny ability to make very complex investment and/or economic topics accessible and understandable to anyone.”

“Susan’s particularly good at working through highly technical material very quickly. That’s very important in this business. A lot of people are good writers, but they have an extensive learning curve for something they’re unfamiliar with. Susan was able to jump very quickly into technical material.”

Read more testimonials!

Improve your investment commentary

Attract more clients, prospects, and referral sources by improving your investment commentary with 44 pages of the best tips from the InvestmentWriting.com blog.

Tips include how to organize your thoughts, edit for the “big picture,” edit line by line, and get more mileage out of your commentary.

Available in PDF format for only $9.99. Email me to buy it now!

Boost your blogging now!

Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients is available for purchase as a PDF ($39) or a paperback ($49, affiliate link).

 

The post APRIL NEWSLETTER: Help for identifying best practices appeared first on Susan Weiner Investment Writing.

MISTAKE MONDAY for March 31: Can YOU spot what’s wrong?

Can you spot what’s wrong in the Mistake Monday image below? Please post your answer as a comment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I post these challenges to raise awareness of the importance of proofreading.

There’s more than one way to rewrite this week’s example. What’s your suggestion?

 

The post MISTAKE MONDAY for March 31: Can YOU spot what’s wrong? appeared first on Susan Weiner Investment Writing.

Style guidelines for financial services firms

Style guidelines for financial services firms can help you to make your written communications more consistent and thus easier to read.

 

Why create style guidelines for your financial services firm?

It can be distracting if writing styles are inconsistent within and across documents published by your firm. For example, is it “counterparty” in the first paragraph and “counter party” in paragraphs two and three? Do headings randomly mix sentence case and title case? Is your company name abbreviated in different ways?

It’s a good idea to pick a major style guide, such as the AP Stylebook, to use as your reference for common questions. However, style guides often don’t cover challenges specific to financial services firms. They certainly don’t tackle company-specific branding issues.

Creating style guidelines tailored to your company can help your writers and editors fill in the blanks left by the major style guides.

How I create style guidelines for my clients

For my editing clients, I create style guidelines for my own reference. They help me to be consistent. Also, I share the guidelines with my proofreader, when I use one.

As issues arise, I record the preferred style in an Excel spreadsheet. In the first column, I record the word, phrase, or other issue. In another column, I record the preferred practice.

Here’s an excerpt from the Capitalization section of one style sheet.

 

 

 

 

 

Section headings that I’ve used include the following:

Abbreviations/acronyms—for example, BRL→Brazilian real, 50 bps→50 basis points (0.50%)CapitalizationCompany names—identify your source for the preferred spelling of company namesCredentials—for example, use the ® mark with the CFP designationHeadings—for example, use sentence case and boldNumbers—for example, SPELL OUT numbers 1 to 9, even in five-year TreasuryPunctuation/grammar/style—for example, use serial comma; DO hyphenate first-quarter and worst-performing WHEN used as ADJECTIVE; use a consistent number of decimal placesSpelling—for example, health care, NOT healthcareWord replacements—for example, cap rate→capitalization rateHow long should your style guidelines be?

My client style sheets would typically fit on one page, if printed out.

I like the philosophy of Intelligent Editing, which recommends that your style sheet run no longer than four pages. The firm says in “Writing a Style Guide: What You Need to Know“:

…bear in mind that the goal is just to focus on points of style where there is no right answer but where one usage is preferred by the organization. A style guide is not the place to teach your colleagues things that they should already know.

The longer your style sheet, the harder it will be for you and your colleagues to apply it consistently. It’s harder for users to keep all of the issues in their heads, even if they scan the style sheet repeatedly.

If you already have style guidelines

If you already have style guidelines, please share them with writers and editors whom you hire, in addition to your company’s employees.

You may struggle with getting your financial firm’s writers to follow them. I’ve addressed your challenge in “Reader question: How to get writers to follow style guidelines?”

Writer image courtesy of adamr/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

Note: This post was updated on March 10, 2025. It was originally published in 2016.

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MARCH NEWSLETTER: Curly versus straight

What kind of quotation marks do you use in your writing?

Did you know that there are two kinds of quotation marks—straight and curly? Straight quotation marks don’t curve, whereas curly quotes seem to wriggle on the page (see image below). The actual appearance of the marks will vary depending on the font you use.

Straight quotes are a hangover from the days of typewriters when you would have needed separate keys to show the curly quotation marks that appear on the left versus those that appear on the right. Today, software can automatically supply the appropriate quotation marks. In fact, curly quotes are also known as “smart quotes” because they’re smart enough to lean in the appropriate direction.

Here’s what one blog says about straight versus curly in “Curly quotes and straight quotes: a quick guide.”

Straight quotes come from typewriter habits. Typewriter character sets were limited by mechanics, so they were replaced with straight quotes. That’s not an issue anymore with word processors and modern typing. Straight quotes are no longer a necessity.

Curly quotes are typically preferred by writers today because they’re more legible and flow better with the content. Straight quotes rarely have a place in any type of modern writing or typography, the technique, and art of arranging type. Designers and people who work with typography tend to stay away from straight quotes as a rule of thumb.

I favor curly quotes because they’re more modern and are generally preferred by my clients. If your company prefers straight quotes, that’s OK, but please use that style consistently. It’s jarring for some readers if you switch between styles.

There are some rare cases in which straight quotes might be preferred. “The ‘Smart Quote’ Struggle” discusses how the use of curly quotes is not supported for searches in some scholarly literature databases. (Thanks, Robyn Bradley, for this link!) This is also true, according to my techie husband, when technical query text is pasted from word processors directly into most database management software that uses some form of structured querying language (SQL).

To turn curly quotes on or off in Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, read “Smart quotes in Word and PowerPoint.”

Historic versus historical

Do you know when to use “historic” instead of “historical” in your financial writing?

For example, if you’re talking about the market setting new highs, you might refer to “historic highs.” That’s because “Historic is most commonly used for something famous or important in history,” as explained in “What’s the difference between ‘historic’ and ‘historical’?” on the Merriam-Webster website.

Treasuries or Treasurys?

How do you write the plural of “Treasury”? Read my take on the topic in “Treasurys vs. Treasuries — Which is the right spelling?”

Learn more about hospice care and the end of life

I wish I had known more about hospice care and the process of dying before a family member started it some years ago. Nothing to Fear: Demystifying Death to Live More Fully is a practical, down-to-earth book written by hospice nurse Julie McFadden. McFadden has a YouTube channel where you can get a taste of her approach to this topic.

On this topic, a friend also recommends The Good Death: A Guide for Supporting Your Loved One through the End of Life by nurse Suzanne B. O’Brien. The book is scheduled for release on March 18, 2025.

Flemish art at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem

I’m a big fan of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

The museum is currently hosting a traveling exhibition of Flemish art, “Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools: 300 Years of Flemish Masterworks.” The show runs through May 4, 2025.

 

       

What my clients say about me

“Fast, effective, insightful. I can think of no better resource for superior financial writing.”

“Susan has an exceptional ability to tailor investment communications to the sophistication level of any audience. She has an uncanny ability to make very complex investment and/or economic topics accessible and understandable to anyone.”

“Susan’s particularly good at working through highly technical material very quickly. That’s very important in this business. A lot of people are good writers, but they have an extensive learning curve for something they’re unfamiliar with. Susan was able to jump very quickly into technical material.”

Read more testimonials!

Improve your investment commentary

Attract more clients, prospects, and referral sources by improving your investment commentary with 44 pages of the best tips from the InvestmentWriting.com blog.

Tips include how to organize your thoughts, edit for the “big picture,” edit line by line, and get more mileage out of your commentary.

Available in PDF format for only $9.99. Email me to buy it now!

Boost your blogging now!

Financial Blogging: How to Write Powerful Posts That Attract Clients is available for purchase as a PDF ($39) or a paperback ($49, affiliate link).

 

The post MARCH NEWSLETTER: Curly versus straight appeared first on Susan Weiner Investment Writing.