Introduction
Happy new year! The content of our team’s annual letter is divided into four sections:
One: A reiteration of those fundamental philosophies we hold to be true in the world of financial planning and investing.
Two: A recap of the year from an investment perspective. As a reminder, we are not predictors of the market, and it would be detrimental to think anybody had that skill. However, I think it’s informative to look back on where we have been as further edification of the fundamental philosophies.
Three: Personnel updates and what we’ve been doing in 2025.
Four: Trevor’s written fireside chat.
Lastly, these are all my opinions based on my experience in this business, the research I have read, and my own understanding of what it takes to be successful. They are, however, my opinions and I’d be happy to discuss anything contained herein in more detail in our next meeting.
Unalterable Truths of Financial Planning/Investing
The Six Truths
- Create an investment plan that is goals-focused
- Use your plan, not the market, to define your success
- Risk is only measured as the probability of not meeting our financial goals (i.e. running out of money!)
- Long-term commitment to equities is the single greatest risk reduction tool we can utilize
- Owning a small amount of “risk-off” assets creates the confidence to maintain a majority position in equities
- All market declines are temporary and should be opportunities for the disciplined investor
In my experience these rules are battle tested year in and year out and have yet to fail me or any of you. My team’s role is to provide a steady hand at the wheel in these tests. In the event you lose your confidence, we are the guides that push you back towards the path. We look forward to serving in that role for many decades to come, and, if we keep in mind the truths above, I am confident we will succeed.
2025 Markets Synopsis
2025 was one of the most historically volatile equity markets of recent memory. Yet, through that volatility the S&P 500 index finished up 17.9%, the MSCI EAFE (international stocks) up 31.22%, and MSCI EM (Emerging Markets stocks) up 34.4%. This was the first year in more than a decade that we saw the US outpaced by the international community. This turnaround was largely driven by a weakening U.S. dollar (created by tariffs) and substantial investment into gold (up 50.2%) and Infrastructure as a response to geopolitical uncertainty and inflationary pressures. After a long period of US Large Cap dominance, 2025 was a boon for those diversified investment portfolios that had exposure to stocks around the world.
Most of the volatility from the year centered around the US.. tariffs released in early April. The suddenness, scale, and size of the tariffs shocked the markets and left companies, consumers and investors scrambling to find a toe hold. Uncertainty created fear and fear spent the market spiraling downward. However, even tariffs were not enough to hold back the AI machine. The latter half of the year saw significant gains from not only the Magnificent Seven, but also many “pick and shovel” industries and companies; specifically, networking, power generation and advanced cooling systems.
Global spending on AI infrastructure in 2025 is estimated to be around $1.5 trillion. That is 5.1% of total global investment and 26.3% of global IT spending. Truly staggering amounts of capital have been spent building out AI language models and now the accompanying data centers that will power them as they go to work in the years to come. In times like this, when outsized building is taking place before gains are created, we have historically seen pockets of volatility due to increased multiples (fiber optic expansion in the 1990’s and railroad building in the mid 1800’s being the most applicable historical examples). It’s important to monitor closely how quickly and sizable the gains in productivity from this spending are being felt in the economy. Thus far, the data suggests productivity gains from AI implementation are being felt rapidly in a variety of industries and companies with the largest gains taking place in coding services and legal services.
I continue to believe we are still on the very front part of the AI productivity curve and that as LLMs get refined, trained and implemented more broadly across a variety of use cases, productivity gains will continue to outpace mounting inflationary pressures due to a cooling job market. Ultimately, humanity will have to wrestle with many of the existential questions AI implementation and job replacement are unleashing. Diligently owning those companies that are adopting and implementing this newest advancement in productivity is our approach towards earning investment returns that will outpace inflation and help all our families meet their goals.
2026 Team Updates
I am excited to announce several personnel changes taking effect in 2026. After three years of dedicated service on our local Milwaukee team, Reece Piotter has been promoted into a business development role within our area and starts this job in the summer. Reece will be concentrating his efforts introducing new families to our Curi Capital team with a special emphasis on physicians in the Wisconsin and Minnesota markets. As always, we’d welcome the opportunity to serve your friends and families who want the same financial security you enjoy today. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to Reece to facilitate those introductions. To fill the void Reece’s promotion will create, we are hiring two new Wealth Management Associates that we will introduce in the months to come. In the meantime, Reece will stay in his current role until those individuals are fully trained and ready to go, so continue to reach out to him as needed. We will make a formal announcement of his full changeover later this year.
Nick Fameree also received a promotion this year to Wealth Advisor. Nick has done an amazing job growing his knowledge and skillset during his time as a Wealth Management Associate. All your positive feedback this past year made his promotion a slam dunk and he looks forward to being even more active providing advice to our clients this year!
Brian Klein: Brian’s big news of 2025 was the arrival of his daughter Emerson in September. He and his wife couldn’t be happier with this new phase of their life as they continue to dig deeper roots into their northside Milwaukee community. Outside of his growing family and busy work schedule, Brian continues to play competitive tennis, manages their two labradors, takes adventurous trips to far-flung places and can be found playing some poker with friends on the weekends. Brian starts the first three months of 2026 on paternity leave, and we are so excited he gets this special time with his daughter.
Reece Piotter: Reece followed through on his engagement in 2024 by marrying Allison, and they are both so excited to have all the wedding planning behind them so they can focus on building their life together here in Milwaukee. As I mentioned already, Reece spent the last quarter of 2025 preparing to take on a new role in our Business Development group and looks forward to transitioning to that role in 2026 as soon as he trains up his replacements. He continues to travel back to MI to spend time with family, play as much golf as possible in the summer, and make time to hit up the gym in the winter.
Nick Fameree: Nick also got married in 2025 and he and his wife have settled into their Wisconsin life. He’s so excited to be back home amongst Packers fans! As a reminder Nick attended the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh, where he majored in Finance. He then served six years in the Marine Corps Reserves, which afforded him the opportunity to travel around the country and continue a legacy of family military service. He began his career at a smaller firm in De Pere, WI, where he worked for two years before moving to D.C. and joining Curi Capital. He will begin 2026 by getting more involved with many families by dispensing and executing financial advice.
Trevor Isham: I just completed 13 years at Curi Capital. In 2025, I took over leadership responsibilities for another advisory team based in Chicago’s western suburbs. I spent a lot of time in Chicago with that team but am excited for more of a balance this year. I love being both teams’ Senior Wealth Manager, mentoring employees, meeting new families, and providing advice to our existing clients. Outside of work, time with our children is precious and they are growing up fast. My daughters are now 7, 9, and 11 years old. My newest joy has been secretly learning “brain rot” and using it in conversation with them. (Six-Seven anybody 😉).
Conclusion
“Get comfortable being uncomfortable”. My team hears this EVERY WEEK from me. It’s become a guiding mantra of my life and it’s a bonus that I love oxymorons. I want to unpack some ways I’ve been incorporating it into my life and perhaps this could prove helpful for some of you.
In the past few years, professionally and personally through my friend network I’ve spent a lot more time with doctors and surgeons. My favorite “nerding out” conversations with these brilliant individuals are discussing the newest medical understandings of exercise. For years, our simple understanding of exercise was, exercise burns calories and that’s good. Now we understand exercise for what it truly does: it triggers a massive, coordinated molecular reprogramming of your body that has too many benefits to list here. I’ll quote Dr. Robert Sallis, “If there was a pill that could do everything exercise can do, it would be the most widely prescribed drug in the world.” Exercise has such a powerful compounding effect… but it’s uncomfortable.
I know just how uncomfortable firsthand. When I restarted my exercise journey 2 years ago it wasn’t just uncomfortable; it was painful, humbling, and fraught with anxiety. I’d spent the better part of 15 years letting my body fall apart. A trainer at the gym talks often about office jobs being some of the most insidious destroyers of health; if you eat all right you don’t necessarily look unhealthy, but your body is slowly wasting away inside. My first two weeks, EVERYTHING HURT! I wanted to quit all the time, as the pain didn’t subside after workouts but lasted most of the next day. But then, slowly, workout by workout, day by day, week by week, I began to get comfortable being uncomfortable. My body was getting reprogrammed!
Here’s the kicker though…you can get exercise complacent. I had expanded my comfort zone to the point where normal workouts were comfortable. Therefore, I needed to find new ways to challenge myself to stay uncomfortable. I needed to do workouts that stressed me out beforehand because I knew how hard they were going to be. It’s not hard to skim the surface of uncomfortable, the challenge is living and breathing new levels of it regularly. What’s amazing about exercise is it’s easy to observe the rewards. Once a month, I breeze through one of my starter exercises to show myself how far I’ve come.
So, my challenge for anybody reading is to find something that is uncomfortable for you and take it on. Perhaps it’s exercise, a new relationship, a new role at work, a new hobby, or a new trip. Go for it and push through the discomfort! I’d love to hear about the challenge you took on and your road to comfortable.
As always, it’s my pleasure to serve as your trusted wealth advisor. I greatly look forward to the next time we are together. Thank you for spending your time reading these thoughts. If any of them prompt questions, please reach out to me or anybody on the team.
Disclaimers
The opinions and analyses expressed in this presentation are based on Curi Capital, LLC’s (“Curi Capital”) research and professional experience are expressed as of the date of this presentation. Certain information expressed represents an assessment at a specific point in time and is not intended to be a forecast or guarantee of future performance, nor is it intended to speak to any future time periods. Curi Capital makes no warranty or representation, express or implied, nor does Curi Capital accept any liability, with respect to the information and data set forth herein, and Curi Capital specifically disclaims any duty to update any of the information and data contained in this presentation. The information and data in this presentation does not constitute legal, tax, accounting, investment, or other professional advice. Past performance is not indicative of future performance, and there is a risk of loss of all or part of your investment. This information is confidential and may not be reproduced or redistributed to any other party without the permission of Curi Capital.
