Action items to take during volatile markets

Unless you don’t watch the news, open the newspaper (if you still get one in print), get online, or check your investments regularly (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing!), you’ve probably noticed that markets have not been the friendliest to investors during the month of October.

October has typically been thought of (though not statistically supported) being a month which stocks tend to lose money. This October has certainly lived up to the hype, recently erasing all of the gains that we experienced up to this point in 2018.

Between the rough February early in the year, the declines in March, and now again in October, 2018 is reminding us why we’re always told that “past performance is no guarantee of future results” and that, with investing, we have to be prepared to pay the “price of admission” (figuratively), which is understanding that stock charts are not always going up and to the right.

However, in the midst of all this, there are ways to both put these short-term events into context over the long term as well as action items to consider.

The video below talks about the following:

• The historical, visual perspective and comparison to both duration and the cumulative return of bear (declining) vs bull (rising) markets.
• Using the produce department at your supermarket as an analogy to portfolio comparisons.
• Three action items to consider taking with your investments.