{"id":83427,"date":"2014-01-22T06:54:49","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T14:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skipsjoberg.com\/embow\/?p=83427"},"modified":"2019-06-09T06:26:21","modified_gmt":"2019-06-09T13:26:21","slug":"here-we-go-again-blue-haired-dowagers-kick-embows-ass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/skipsjoberg.com\/embow\/here-we-go-again-blue-haired-dowagers-kick-embows-ass\/","title":{"rendered":"Here we go Again – Blue Haired Dowagers Kick EMBOW’s Ass"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"UTI1748442_t730\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I‘m pretty sure at least of few of these ladies went missing for a few days after this picture was taken and some probably drove back to Rancho Santa Fe via San Jose…<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dow Divas make a difference for the opera<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By James ChutenoonJan. 11, 2014<\/p>\n

Members of the Dow Divas gather for their monthly meeting. The group will be donating $500,000 to the San Diego Opera.
\nIt\u2019s been a good 12 months for the Dow Divas Investment Club, which generated a 23 percent annual return in 2013.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur husbands are so jealous,\u201d said Iris Lynn Strauss, the club\u2019s president and, with Faye Wilson, its co-founder. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to think that we\u2019re smarter than they are, and they don\u2019t want to take advice from us, but I would venture we do better than they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

That may be accurate, but you\u2019d have to consider it on a husband-by-husband basis, as the club\u2019s impressive return was still a little short of the 29.6 percent gain achieved by the S&P 500 in 2013. (\u201cThe big, high-quality dividend growers in their portfolio were underperformers in 2013,\u201d explained the Divas\u2019 investment adviser, Jeff Dunigan.)<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s indisputable that during its 18 years, the 22-member club comprised of opera donors has done extremely well \u2014 well enough to donate $500,000 this year to the San Diego Opera and to plan and cover the cost of the opera\u2019s annual opening night gala, scheduled for Jan. 25 at the Civic Theatre.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are smart women,\u201d said Strauss about her colleagues, who comprise a who\u2019s who of influential women in San Diego\u2019s cultural community. \u201cThey are committed, they are serious, and they do their research.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a far cry from 1996, when Wilson was looking around the room at a charity event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, everyone one of these women, either through divorce or death of a husband, is likely to be managing money alone,\u201d said Wilson, who has an extensive banking and business background. \u201cThey should at least be able to know enough to judge their advisers and the performance the adviser provides for their portfolios.\u201d<\/p>\n

She approached Strauss, who affirmed that many of the individuals in the room \u201ccouldn\u2019t even read the financial pages of the newspaper.\u201d<\/p>\n

With investment clubs all the rage (the Beardstown Ladies\u2019 best-selling book came out in 1994), and their mutual interest in opera (Wilson was the board president at the time), Wilson and Strauss incorporated the Dow Divas Investment Club.<\/p>\n

They agreed to keep the membership relatively small (20-25 partners), hold regular educational events, charge monthly dues to build up an investment portfolio, and require a minimum donation to the opera as part of the membership requirements.<\/p>\n

The organization now has 22 members who pay quarterly dues of $500 and individually support the opera at a level of $25,000 annually or above. It meets monthly, where each of its members is responsible for reporting on one of the stocks in its approximately $500,000 portfolio. A rotating committee of three members also gives monthly reports on new stocks for consideration.<\/p>\n

Options are discussed, and the group votes on what to buy, and sometimes more critically, what to sell.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople become very enamored of their stock,\u201d Strauss said. \u201cThey never want to sell, though we do. There\u2019s nothing wrong if a stock peaks to take some cash and make some profit, but we have sometimes waited too long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dunigan, who is affiliated with UBS Financial Services, acknowledges the discussions often get heated \u2014 even to \u201coperatic\u201d proportions. But he\u2019s impressed and encouraged at how cohesive the group is. Once a vote is taken, the acrimony ends.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe second it\u2019s over, it\u2019s over,\u201d Dunigan said. \u201cThere\u2019s no looking back; there are no grudges. I think men passively-aggressively hold grudges that women, or these women, don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although a large part of his role as adviser is educational, Dunigan says he\u2019s learned a lot from the Dow Divas.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it\u2019s the women in the group who are highly sophisticated investors or the women who are not: They all have an intuitive streak that I don\u2019t think men have,\u201d Dunigan said. \u201cThe investing world is predominantly a male world, and all its traditional metrics are male metrics, all of the ratios, price to earnings, price to book, you know, debt to net equity …<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen the Dow Divas look at that, analyze that all, then go in the complete opposite direction. They are much more subjective and intuitive, and often, it\u2019s that subjective component of the analysis that turns out to be the one that\u2019s right.\u201d<\/p>\n

The husbands might not want to hear that.<\/p>\n

jim.chute@utsandiego.com \u2022 Twitter: @sdutchute \u2022 Facebook: facebook.com\/utartmusic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I‘m pretty sure at least of few of these ladies went missing for a few days after this picture was taken and some probably drove back to Rancho Santa Fe via San Jose…   Dow Divas make a difference for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/skipsjoberg.com\/embow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83427"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/skipsjoberg.com\/embow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/skipsjoberg.com\/embow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skipsjoberg.com\/embow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skipsjoberg.com\/embow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83427"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/skipsjoberg.com\/embow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83431,"href":"http:\/\/skipsjoberg.com\/embow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83427\/revisions\/83431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/skipsjoberg.com\/embow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skipsjoberg.com\/embow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/skipsjoberg.com\/embow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}