All In or Out?
Key Takeaways
In today’s technological age, we are able to track market performance in near real-time.
This often leads us to chase investments or panic sell out of fear.
However, one of the most important factors in making this decision is when you need your assets.
If you require them soon, it’s best to allocate towards less volatile instruments — conversely, if you only need them in 5 years or more, it is better to put them to work in a way that can capture all available returns.
The investment world somehow messes with our minds. For the most part, rising prices attract buyers and falling prices makes everyone want to sell. But if we were to buy anything else — groceries, shoes, clothes, we would likely thumb our noses up at rising prices.
And because of how quick information gets to us these days, we can track rising and falling prices minute by the minute.
Global stocks, represented by our core equity fund — the United G Strategic Fund are around -15% from their all time highs and +10% from the recent lows. You could say currently, they are nearly in the middle ground of performance.
Nervous investors who are still holding on and fearing another market downturn may feel bearish. New investors who have cash on hand and are looking to allocate their capital may feel bullish. But before you jump on either bandwagon, take a step back — whether you buy or sell now has less to do with your feelings and more of whether you need your assets now.
If your investment plan was set up in a way that you needed to liquidate a portion or to start your payouts during this period, then its likely that you didn’t hold all your assets in equities. Your bonds and cash would have buffered some of the fall. If you didn’t need to utilise this money until 10 years later, then why fret now?
So hopefully when you invested, you are not flying blind. Having a chart of your progress and a well thought out plan:
Eliminates the all-in or all-out mentality.
Allows you to sleep at night in a bad market.
Takes the stress off of you to make calls on the market based on fear or prediction.
In the same way that you would not attempt a high risk activity such as sky-diving without professional supervision, investors can benefit greatly by relying on an adviser — having the peace of mind knowing that their plan is in the hands of a professional.
If any of the points speak to you and you would like to have an exploratory discussion, click here to schedule a chat with us. (Our 30-minute exploratory meeting is complimentary - either Zoom or In-Person)
