SPRING 2025
We’ve Seen This Movie Before – It Has a Happy Ending
I get it – the news is scary. I don’t watch the news. I read what I need to read to get the facts and stay on top of what’s going on so that I can sit in this seat and remain objective, but that’s it. And markets don’t like uncertainty. So, from all of us here, we understand, and we empathize. Scary markets and scary news make for unsettling times.
It’s okay to feel this way, even if you have lived through other scary markets.
It’s okay to feel like “it’s different this time.”
Here’s what I can tell you:
Every scary market is different. But history tells us that they all end the same way.
This is a period of major structural change. Certain aspects of it predate this presidential administration and started with the onset of the global coronavirus pandemic. We have been talking with you about how these changes affect you and your financial plan for some time. If you have kept up regularly with our office and informed us of the financial changes in your life, you have a well-designed and diversified portfolio to see you through periods like this. That does not mean that you won’t see the value of your portfolio fluctuate, but it does mean that you have a degree of downside protection appropriate for your risk tolerance.
If something in your financial life has changed recently, and you need more income than you previously thought, for example, please let us know. This is different from making decisions out of fear. We do not want to uproot a well-designed financial plan that has accounted for thousands of scenarios – worst case, middle of the road, and best case – and assigned probabilities to all of them. Our job – my job – is to remain objective and steer you toward rational decision-making when that may be difficult, because the scary markets always start for different reasons, but they always end the same way – they go up. And when they do, we want to be participating and benefiting. That is how we grow our wealth.
I’ll leave you with this sketch from one of my favorite financial planners, Carl Richards. It was published in the New York Times May 16, 2016:
Hang in there. The picture looks like a roller coaster, but it’s going to be okay. We’re in this together.
Rachel