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With yesterday’s announcement that Peloton, the “best cardio machine on the planet” according to Men’s Health, is interviewing banks this week in anticipation of going public later this year, the IPO market is heating up to a sweat. With expected IPO’s from Uber, Lyft, and Slack Technologies, 2019 could go down as the biggest year in dollar terms since the halcyon days of 2000. This is also happening while the government has been shut down, putting a stop to IPO’s for that period of time. Wall Street likes big deals, so we should keep an eye on the big bank stocks. Systematic exercise combined with systematic investing, now feel the burn.

In 2018, the best performing national market according to Bloomberg was Jamaica, up about 28% in US dollars. Now granted, this is a very small market and there are zero Jamaican stocks in US exchange traded funds, but this does point to the fact that as investors we have to continue to look for the best opportunities around the world. Our 328 million people in the US represents less than 5% of the over 7 billion people in the world, so there is and will be opportunities in international and emerging markets for stocks and bonds. “Ya mon, money flows to where it is treated best.”

Average achievers tell themselves ”I can only do a little so I might as well do nothing.” High achievers say to themselves, “Even if I can only do a little, I’m going to do as much as I can.” You may not have the whole day, but you have 15 minutes. Put those minutes to good use. They are the little things that will take you to your goals. As the late Zig Ziglar pointed out, “I lost 37 pounds in ten months by losing 1.9 ounces- per day. I wrote ‘See You At The Top,’ a 384 page, 2 million copy best seller, by writing an average of 1.26 pages every day for ten months. People who are successful at whatever they do, reach their objectives, by a series of little things they do every day.” Daily discipline adds up. Ever watch a  small drip of water into a bucket?  Come back 4 days later and that empty bucket is now overflowing. Drip drip drip. Small repeating habits; it’s the stuff winners are made of.