This month, and last year, both serve as reminders and cases for long-term investing.
While in the short term, volatility has increased and the seas look choppy, over the long run investment markets trend upwards.
As Mark discusses following his reread of The Chimp Paradox, It is completely natural and human to be concerned and be reactive to volatility in investment markets. However, this is where a financial planner can help you!
A trusted financial planner will help you step out of your ‘Chimp Mind‘ and focus on the long term.
Take 2020, as an example of not reacting to day to day or week to week volatility.
If you had invested your portfolio entirely in the S&P 500 on the 31st December 2019, and decided you were going on a yearlong sabbatical to the North Pole, switched off your phone, turned off the outside world and simply sat by a fire and read.
When you returned on the 31st December 2020 you decided to see how your portfolio was doing, you would be delighted to see it return c. 14% and be none the wiser of all the volatility which was happening day by day, week by week.
While many last year attempted to time the market, what matters most is time in the market.
