To understand the difference between expecting the average and planning for a long, safe life, look no further than the beautiful ocean communities of Japan. Picture a small fishing village with the local economy built around the sea. A colorful pagoda stands in contrast to the green mountain backdrop with a snowy white peak. Kids play in the water, as a Zen Buddhist painter contemplates the waves.

The interesting thing about quality art is its sense of history, and there’s perhaps no greater theme in Japanese art culture than the topic of waves. For example, the title image is a famous woodblock print called The Great Wave off Kanagawa by the artist Hokusai in 1831. It depicts a fierce tsunami off the coast of Mt. Fuji, and is memorable not just for its beauty but also for its deep local meaning. As an island on the Ring of Fire, Japan knows a thing or two about the impact of tsunamis.

The typical day in coastal Japan is quite wonderful, with people congregating around the average sea level. But wander up the nearest mountain and you may find an old stone that looks like this.

Placed after a deadly tsunami killed untold numbers of people in 1933, this one reads:

“High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants. Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point.”

Even the seemingly most peaceful ocean can quickly turn deadly with a single earthquake. And to this day, many locals heed these old tsunami stones to stay safe from harm. Historical markers are the guideposts that help them see beyond the average times and survive the worst.

To fight through the hectic modern culture and apply some of that Zen mindset to investing, I think it’s helpful to similarly seek any financial tsunami stones on the market shoreline. They’re all around if you just know where to look. So grab a cup of tea, and let’s talk about the impact of rolling investing waves.

If it feels like I’ve been writing a little less lately, you’re not wrong. There are a few perfectly normal reasons. First, I just returned from a nice beach vacation where I very intentionally unplugged. And second, like many people after the much-anticipated release of Diablo IV in June I’ve been playing more than my share of video games.

With the benefit of that needed vacation away from the computer and both email and games alike, I realized this might be a good opportunity to write an article exploring the overlap of investing and gaming mindsets. There are certainly a lot of parallels in my own thought processes, and I imagine many of you may relate.

Any time there is lots of money involved in a particular market, there will inevitably be a subset of people that emerge to capitalize on the situation by exaggeration, deception, and outright theft. Madoff, Enron, Lehman Brothers, Tyco — history is littered with financial frauds that cost investors billions.

How does nobody see it coming? Unfortunately the world today isn’t as simple as obvious good guys and bad guys, and it’s sometimes impossible for normal people to tell respectable companies apart from carefully constructed marketing images. The good news is that there are a few simple steps you can take to protect yourself from the fallout when things go terribly wrong from events you never saw coming.

But before we get to the good stuff, let’s unwind the most recent example of financial corruption that every investor should educate themselves about — the rise and fall of FTX.

Investing is like riding a skateboard. It takes skill, balance, lots of practice, and a certain amount of fearlessness. You know for a fact that you’re going to fall sometimes, and yet you do it anyway because you understand that perseverance pays off. Still, even the best skaters know when and how to bail gracefully without getting hurt.

With bonds cratering this year amid rapidly rising interest rates, that portion of my portfolio is currently a sea of red. Bond purchases going back a full decade are suddenly underwater, and after surveying my options it quickly became evident that it’s time for a big change. So after much deliberation, this week I finally pulled the trigger and sold every long term bond in my portfolio. With a simple click of a button, a big chunk of my total holdings that I’ve depended on for years went straight to my cash balance and I realized a sizable capital loss in my account.

Then a few seconds later, I put all of that money into an extremely similar bond fund with much lower expenses. And I used those capital losses to also swap out my gold holdings with big capital gains completely tax free. The end result is that I took advantage of unique market conditions to maintain the same asset allocation that serves me very well while saving potentially thousands of dollars a year.

What — you thought I bailed on bonds entirely? Please. My portfolio continues to cruise on, and I landed that kickflip like a champ!

Here’s how you can, too.

Perhaps the single most impactful development in the financial world over the last several months is the rapid onset of high inflation. After a decade of particularly low inflation that even pushed negative in some countries, the ugly specter of quickly rising prices came roaring back late last year and has only gotten worse. As recently as March 2021, the annualized inflation in the US was at a historically typical 2.6%. But just one year later it skyrocketed all the way to 8.5%. That’s the highest it has been since 1981, and we can all feel its effects. Everything is just way more expensive today.

With consumer prices making news worldwide, it’s easy to feel helpless. Massive price tags on basic staples like food, gas, and rent have a way of humbling even the most efficient money manager and stressing household earners to the limit. And many investors with lots of money saved up no longer feel so confident either as both the stock and bond markets break under the weight of the new economic normal. It’s really tough out there!

While I don’t have a magic wand to make your grocery bill more affordable, I’m happy to help where I can. So let’s tackle the investing side. Not every asset and portfolio responds to inflation in the same way, and by learning more about how they operate we can find an asset allocation suitable to weather the current storm.