Letter to Stakeholders, January 2026

Wednesday, January 7, 2:55 pm EST. It’s finally 2026 and for some reason it just feels “good” to be in a new year. A primary question on your mind could be, “How are we doing?” Well, according to your portfolios, you’re doing well. 

It’s been a while since I’ve been asked but in the past one or two prospective clients have wondered what our “average returns” are for our clients. It’s a difficult question because we are not a mutual fund, we’re a family wealth management firm. We invest clients according to their needs while minimizing risk. Some investors look to the S&P 500 index as a performance benchmark. It’s a measurement of the returns of the 500 largest public companies in the world. But it does not always measure the highest “average” return (see: BlackRock’s Asset Map). European securities won that prize last year. So how do we measure investment portfolio success for you?  

Risk, Reward and Righteous Indignation

All of our clients come to us with family goals that include higher returns and for many, an income stream. Our foundation for achieving these goals begins with Noble Laureate Eugene Fama’s academic, efficient market theory. His “Efficient Capital Markets” paper on stock market price behavior laid out the reasons that allocators should:

1. Stay invested in the market (during ups and downs)
2. Not pay “extra” fees for funds that try to time the market

Since our firm’s inception in 2015, we’ve invested in low fee funds, building portfolios that cover the global market of large, small, domestic and international companies. Doing this balances the risk of downturns in each sector while balancing growth opportunities. As interest rates rose in 2022, we added the advantage of money market funds: lower risk with regular returns. In 2023, we added opportunities to invest with structured notes: buffered risk with income and capital gains.  Taken together our “model” portfolio design represents our best ideas for capturing optimal risk adjusted returns. Our mindset is not fixed but we take time to evaluate every new idea; typically, on ourselves! 

 Since 2020, we have been committed to investing with an added focus on sustainability. What we believe – and have found – is that long-term returns are not hurt by considering environmental, equal opportunity, human rights, corporate accountability and health accountability screens. These efforts continue into 2026.

How to Invest in Carbon Credits

Just yesterday I followed up on an opportunity to speak with Ron Gutstein, the founder of COtwo Advisors, LLC.  Our firm hosts a “speaker series” to learn from experts who can add value to your family. My initial conversation with Ron brought to light the difference between “carbon credits” and “carbon offsets.” In layman's terms, “credits” are regulated by a government and allow a purchaser to generate one ton of CO2 emissions (per credit). Regulation brings transparency and price validity to carbon credit markets. “Offsets” by contrast are typically unregulated and hard to measure. Our federal government so far does not regulate carbon credits but he European Union created the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) in 2005 which paved the way (I think) for the European Union Allowance Ron and I discussed (I’m still learning). 

Over the course of about three years, Ron created a business plan, attracted investors and formed industry partnerships to create an Exchange Traded Product (ETP) which means we can now trade/invest in carbon credits in the United States on the public markets. Ron goes into some detail about the previous limitations of trading credits in the “futures markets.”  The potential I see for portfolios is being able to literally reduce the availability of CO2 emissions by investing a part of our portfolios in this ETP. We have more research to do which includes investing in these funds ourselves before we offer them to you. Doug’s retirement account seems like a good place to start!

To view the entire conversation with Ron Gutstein of COtwo Advisors, LLC, watch here.

Jason J. Howell, CFP®, CPWA®, CSRIC® 

President

Jason Howell Company is the family wealth management firm focused on life after wealth—helping families preserve what they’ve built, stay aligned through family governance, and give with intention across generations.

Jason J. Howell, CFP®, CPWA®, CSRIC® and Douglas W. Tees, MBA, CFP® CAP®, CBDA have spent decades working with families in the Washington, DC area and understand the unique ways wealth is experienced here. Successful entrepreneurs and family business owners often feel they must continually prove themselves; government contractors worry about the next contract; former Capitol Hill staffers and former agency employees privately question how to reconcile public service with private sector success. Similar tensions arise among professionals at our region’s many corporate headquarters. These unspoken dynamics can make it difficult for families to talk openly about money or make confident long-term decisions. Through a family governance approach, we help families create clarity, alignment, and structure—bringing together values, decision-making, and philanthropy so wealth can be stewarded thoughtfully across generations.

Our typical client families include dual income parents who work, have saved (or inherited) well and have just the right amount of fun! Prospective clients may be about to sell land or a business for an extraordinary "liquidity event." Regardless, we focus just as much on family preservation as we do wealth preservation. Our prospective clients recognized they:

• Need to “do something” with the cash in their checking/savings
• Need to start tax planning instead of just tax paying
• Need to reduce the isolation, guilt and decision fatigue
• Need to separate but align family wealth and individual wealth
• Need to reduce financial miscommunications between family members
• Need a plan to provide space for both family and individual philanthropy
• Need to separate business finances from personal finances
• Need to eventually diversify their portfolio away from the family business
• Need an investment strategy for income, “up” and “down” markets
• Need a plan to mitigate market, credit, inflation, and political risks
• Need to be sure they are choosing the right work benefits
• Need to plan for money while alive before what happens after death