Financial Strategies: September 11 — 25 years later

Twenty-five years ago this week, I began my career as a registered financial adviser.

Monday, Sept. 10, 2001, was the beginning of my first week fully registered and able to make recommendations, take orders — and finally get paid.

I was 26 years old, living in Flagstaff, Arizona, and incredibly excited to begin my career with AG Edwards and Sons. I had spent the previous six months building a prospect list, and I was ready to get into the office and start making calls.

Tuesday morning, my boss called.

“Don’t come into the office. Turn on the TV.”

Like millions of Americans, I watched as the world changed.

What followed remains one of the most formative periods of my life — personally and professionally.

For the next several days, the U.S. stock markets didn’t open. Four consecutive trading days. It was the longest shutdown since the Great Depression.

When the markets finally reopened on Sept. 17, the S&P 500 fell nearly 5% that day and more than 11% that first week. But Sept. 11 had struck in the middle of an already brutal bear market. The S&P would continue falling for more than another year, ultimately bottoming in October 2002—nearly 29% below where it had closed the day before the attacks, and almost 50% below its March 2000 peak.

Quite an introduction to a career in financial advice!

But when I think back on that period, the markets aren’t what I remember most.

I remember the American flags proudly displayed everywhere, the tears, the embraces, and the overwhelming sense of pride and community — even among people who had never met before.

I remember people looking out for one another.

And I remember a sense of national unity unlike anything I had experienced before — or have experienced since.

For those who lived through September 11, it’s difficult to adequately describe those first few days to someone who didn’t.

For those who know it primarily as history, think about some of the uncertainty and disorientation we all experienced during the earliest days of COVID — but compressed into a handful of days.

There were no smartphones. Commercial flights across the country were grounded. Being outside was quiet. Information was limited. Rumors traveled quickly. And underlying everything was the terrifying question of whether another attack was coming.

Yet amid that fear, Americans came together.

Twenty-five years later, I still remember the people who lost their lives that morning, the families whose lives changed forever, and the first responders who ran toward unimaginable danger.

I also remember what our country looked like afterward.

We weren’t Republicans or Democrats first.

We weren’t divided into a thousand different categories.

We were Americans.

The first piece of artwork I received for my first office (with a door) was a framed photograph of the New York skyline.

Twenty-five years later, it’s still hanging in my office.

The photograph is beginning to show its age.

Unfortunately, so am I.

But maybe that’s part of why I love it.

I see it almost every day. And almost every day, even if only for a moment, it takes me back to where my career began, what happened the very next morning, and what I watched our country become in the days that followed.

I will never forget.

And I hope we never do.

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