SHAKEUPS AND SHAKEOUTS: Don’t Be a Victim of Volatility!

SHAKEUPS AND SHAKEOUTS: Don’t Be a Victim of

Volatility!

When it’s time to buy, you won’t want to. This old financial-market saying has been true for generations of investors, but lately the “time to buy” principle is being tested by multiple cataclysmic events, all seemingly conspiring to push amateur traders out of the markets.

Shakeups aren’t just part of investing, but are also part of life and history. I witnessed firsthand the powerful images of a resilient culture when I took a trip to London not long ago. Sure, I was wowed by the enduring artifacts of centuries’ worth of history. Practically everywhere I looked, I took in the grandeur of England expanding its largest empire throughout the centuries, and to this day having a culture that’s well respected and standing the test of time.

This sense of history is sometimes hard to recall on a day-to-day basis, however. In the short-term, the people in Europe and elsewhere have seen the volatility of wars, bombings, fires, and feast-or-famine scenarios for individuals as their quality of life deteriorates in an instant.

If anything, we should be grateful if our families are safe and secure during these tumultuous times. Still, it’s easy to get rattled as the financial markets churn in both directions and the financial headlines focus on global disasters.

There’s a full menu of reasons to panic-sell everything you own, if you’re looking for them: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, rising inflation, a housing market collapse, aggressive interest rate hikes, supply chain constraints and empty store shelves, etc.

Recessions, crashes, inflation, booms and busts will roil individuals – this is a natural human response. In times like this, investors should consider how resilient people and nations have managed to survive and even prosper throughout history. Think of what past generations went through during world wars; despite the losses and the horrors, the survivors took it day by day and just kept going.

In the same way, the markets will survive and move on. Stand-by holdings like gold and silver will still be here, just as they were during world wars and other global calamities. Great businesses and their stocks will survive, as well.

Self-awareness – and the ability to put today’s turmoil into a historical context – is key to succeeding when many retail investors are capitulating at the worst possible time. You can choose to be like the amateurs and let yourself get shaken out of the trade by scary headlines, or you can stay the course and invest like the professionals, who buy what the retail traders are panic-selling at reduced prices.

In other words, you can stay calm and apply the biblical principle that this, too, shall pass. Our finances and our lives will always be replete with shakeups and some folks will get shaken out time and again. Thankfully, we all have free will and falling victim to shakeouts doesn’t have to be your choice, or your destiny.