Protecting Your Financial Health During a Pandemic

If the Covid-19 global pandemic has you worried about your health and safety, I can assure you that you are not alone. These are challenging times, and we should all be following the guidance and advice of health experts as it relates to public safety.

But I also think this is the time that investors need to be focused on financial health.  

As an investment expert – not a health expert – my advice to you is to create two distinct lanes for how you’re thinking during this public health crisis. In one lane, you have your feelings and actions as they relate to personal health and safety. This is your lane for heightened precautions, safety measures, and so on.

In the other lane, I think you maintain a positive, long-term outlook on how the economy and market are likely to stage a full recovery, with asset prices swinging back to new highs perhaps even by the end of the year. This is your rational, forward-looking lane. This mindset is extremely challenging to maintain when it feels like the sky is falling. But in my view, it’s views like this that separate the smart money from the not-so-smart money over time.

The fact that volatility tends to strike in scary clusters makes this kind of long-term thinking very difficult for many investors. We can easily get drawn into intense focus over what’s going to happen tomorrow versus what’s going to happen a year or five years from now. Short-term thinking is emotionally-driven; long-term thinking is data-driven. The latter is an investor’s key to success, especially in times like these.

We are starting to see a more coordinated fiscal, monetary, and organizational response to the crisis that I think will pay off in the next few months. It won’t feel that way as the media’s grip on the national consciousness – coupled with ongoing volatility and big down days – give the impression that nothing is working and the world is ending. Algorithmic trading platforms often exacerbate the ups and downs too, making each day feel unprecedented in some way. But as a nation we have gotten through myriad crises throughout our history, and we’ll get through this one, too. Investors just need to stay patient and smart.

One final note on volatility: 24 of the 25 best days in the market’s history have come within 30 days of the worst days in the market’s history. That’s almost 100% of huge upswings happening in close proximity to huge downswings! This should serve as a reminder to investors not to try and time the market. Missing the big up days can mean compromising your long-term returns.

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