This Market. Your Investments. My Brain Dump.
Volatility is the price of admission to the stock market but this is absolutely not the environment in which to make big, bold asset allocation calls.
Trump’s tariff policy has spooked financial markets around the world. It’s natural to be anxious or even scared at times like these. Thinking clearly right now is more difficult — but also more important — than ever.
To try and help with that, here’s a brain dump of some of my thoughts, observations and suggestions:
Keep the current declines in context. From the beginning of January 2023 to the beginning of April 2025, the S&P 500 rose by 47% including dividends and the NASDAQ returned 78%.
Don’t listen to anyone predicting anything. Nobody knows what will happen next.
Leave bottom-picking to proctologists right now.
Don’t fall for the idea you will make good investment allocation decisions in this environment. You will more than likely end up regretting any emotional choices you make at this time.
Even if you happen to correctly time an exit, you’ll fail to properly time the re-entry and that could cost you significantly in the long-run. That’s not one, but two critical decisions that you have to get right and I am here to tell you that you won’t.
Focus on your long-term investing goals and remember that equity markets have historically always generated strong long-term returns despite frequent bouts of losses. Don’t treat your long term investments like short term ones.
If you don’t have a financial plan (including an estate plan, proper insurance coverage, projected retirement income etc., etc.), now would be really good time to put one together and get your financial house in order. Talk to me if you want help with this.
Clients know that I believe in a “bucket strategy” with multiple differently-allocated, highly diversified ETF-based portfolios (no individual stocks!) with the risk taken determined by time horizon, including all-cash for expenses upcoming in the next two to three years and zero-risk emergency funds. What we are seeing right now is exactly why this approach works.
If you are lucky enough to have a long term view and excess cash, consider deploying some of it to make one-time deposits or accelerate systematic buying into multi-decade time horizon, stock-heavy buckets holding diversified ETFs while prices are lower. If you liked the S&P 500 at a price of 6000, you have to love it at 5000.
If you feel tempted to make big shifts it could mean that your risk profile is either off or you may be misunderstanding exactly where it lies. If it is keeping you up at night, you might want to consider correcting that situation, preferably under the guidance of an un-conflicted financial market professional.
Consider this as a golden opportunity to swap out high risk concentrated individual stock positions (including employer stock) or silly investments you may have impulsively made in the past into more diversified ETF-based allocations.
If your investment platform does not automatically do it for you, then consider some manual rebalancing if your portfolios are starting to get out of whack relative to where they should be.
Own it. If you’re sitting on stressful losses or volatile positions, talk about it. Don’t bottle it up and let it eat at you. Have conversations with and get advice and opinions from a tight-knit group of people that you trust and who know what they are talking about, rather than freaking out to hyperbolic uninformed nonsense on social media.
Put your head down and do your work. Staring at your account and bingeing on financial TV won’t change the stock and bond markets or your portfolio outcome. Leave that shit to me, that’s what I am paid to do. Get to work doing what you do for a living. Focus, add value to those around you in both your professional and personal life, ignore anything you can’t control and concentrate only on those things you can.
I am available to clients to both talk and listen. For those with managed accounts, I will not be making broad asset allocation changes directly in response to current conditions but this may be an opportunity to tactically switch in to some different, more optimal ETFs with which to represent those allocations.
If you are not already a client, please reach out. I’d be happy to discuss providing you with a guide through this latest bout of stressful volatility.
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