Quarterly Client Letter – Q1 2026

Q1 2026

Dear Clients,

I recently read a fantastic blog post about how investing lessons are far more useful than investing predictions at the beginning of each year. Predictions are often made for marketing purposes. Lessons, while less exciting, become increasingly invaluable over time. Interestingly, financial lessons don’t change much from year to year. You may notice that many of the topics we discuss sound familiar—and there’s a reason for that.

As humans, we are simply not wired to be good investors. Much of what makes someone successful at investing runs counter to natural human behavior and is often learned the hard way through experience. Fortunately, we’ve learned many of these lessons along the way—and we’re able to share them with you.

With that in mind, here are some predictions for 2026—and lessons reinforced by 2025 (these tend to apply every year):

• Something unsettling will happen—perhaps geopolitical conflict, tariff announcements, or political uncertainty such as a government shutdown.
• Someone will predict a market crash. It may be Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon, or a comparison to 1929, 1999, or another historical period.
• Someone will tell you that you should be doing exactly what they are doing (you probably shouldn’t).
• A new and intimidating technology will emerge that appears to threaten jobs and industries.

As Jason Zweig of The Wall Street Journal wisely noted, “While people need good advice, what they want is advice that sounds good.”
Unfortunately, what sounds good is almost never as good as it sounds.

At Hobbs Group Advisors, our role is to provide the advice you need, not just the advice that sounds appealing. Often, that means talking you out of bad decisions and helping keep the wolves at bay. If you ever find yourself questioning whether an idea is too good to be true—or whether the person presenting it may have ulterior motives—we encourage you to have them speak with us.

Our hope for 2026 is simple: that we continue to earn your trust and have the opportunity to provide truly good financial advice. That is why our firm exists, and with your confidence in us, we aim to make a meaningful and positive impact on your financial life.

Tax Season & Fidelity Tax Forms

As we enter tax season, we want to make you aware that Fidelity will begin releasing tax forms this week. You may start receiving automated alerts directly from Fidelity as your tax documents become available online.

If you work with The Hobbs Group, there is no need to worry about gathering or interpreting every form on your own. Our team is preparing a comprehensive tax packet for you and your CPA. This packet will include applicable tax forms along with a detailed tax letter outlining any relevant items that may not appear directly on Fidelity’s tax forms but are still important for accurate tax reporting. There is one exception concerning tax forms. If you became a new client of HGA in 2025, there may be tax forms from your previous custodian. Also, if you have accounts not managed by HGA, you must provide these to your tax provider.

We will notify you once your tax packet is complete and ready to share with your CPA.

Newsletter News

A great way to start 2026 is by staying connected through our quarterly newsletter. In this month’s edition, we cover several key topics related to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 and how it may impact your tax planning for both 2025 and 2026.

We’ve moved to a quarterly newsletter format, so please be on the lookout for this email and future updates.

As always, thank you for the trust you place in us. We look forward to working with you in the year ahead.

Warm regards,
Peter A. Pigeon, CFP®