Between spooky Halloween decorations, the predictable election anxiety, and a touch of understandable Covid fatigue, is seems fear is on the minds of investors these days. I’ve noticed a distinct uptick in nervous takes from stressed investors worried about everything from low interest rates to high valuations. While families with enough savings and job security to weather the lockdown storm are doing pretty well in the grand scheme of things, the thing about fear is that it’s flexible.
No matter who you are or how confident you feel, I can guarantee you have a pain point tucked away that scares the living daylights out of you. Maybe it’s spiders, heights, or rejection. Or yes, financial loss that delays your retirement or destroys your life goals. Nobody is immune. And many people seem to be sharing concerns that stocks and bonds are about to fall apart and drag their life savings into the dark financial abyss.
But make no mistake — those fears are often quite legitimate! The doomsday analysts may be completely right about the prospects for different assets. Markets shift all the time, and the question is not if but when stocks and bonds give up the ghost. So knowing that the grim financial reaper may be right around the next corner, there are at least three different options for tackling the dreaded unknown.
