We received great feedback on the articles we circulated earlier in the week, so we wanted to follow up with some more!

Here are five more pieces that additional team members have read, along with some commentary on why they found the respective articles interesting.  Like the last set of articles, we’ve included pieces related to economics, investments, current events, and behavioral finance.

Adam Rudolph – Here’s How to Keep Emotion Out of Your Investment Decisions Amid a Volatile Market

This article resonated with me because it isolates the biggest challenge we face as investors – ourselves.  In this article, financial psychologist Dr. Brad Klontz provides helpful tips for managing your emotions during periods of volatility.  “Go ahead and panic, but don’t panic about the fact that you’re panicking.”  In other words, acknowledge your emotions, but don’t act on them.

 A.J. Price – How Do Investors Fail?

While the media often tends to describe how people make fortunes from flashy investments, this article grabbed my attention as it shows the other side of the coin – how investors can fail.  One significant point in this piece is that investors don’t save enough for taxes.  It’s important to keep in mind the taxes you’ll owe from both portfolio and non-portfolio activity.  I also enjoyed the point regarding the importance of reducing concentration risk.  As the article says, “Concentration to get rich, but diversification to stay rich.”

Andrew Cohn – Secure Act 2.0 is a No Go

There has been a lot of discussion about budget reconciliation and Build Back Better legislation in the past year.  Many ways the administration looked to pay for the programs included modifications to retirement plan options such as Roth, Roth Conversions, and Back Door Roth contribution strategies. With many of those plans on hold and the budget ready for approval, some retirement plan changes are on hold.  I enjoyed reading this overview of some of the things in the works.

Kristopher Gutowski – The Key to Surviving All This Volatility? Keep Your Cool

It was relatively easy to be a stock market investor last year.  Now amid volatility and geopolitical uncertainty, this article reminds us that we ‘won’t get equity-like returns with less than equity-like volatility.’  I like this article because it is a good reminder that we may not be able to control the news cycle or the markets, but we can control how we prepare our portfolios and how we plan to react to long-term investing success.

Cory Rappaport – The Cost of Holding

This article is more about human psychology than the markets, but I think it draws many parallels. Whether it’s inflation, sluggish market performance, or rising interest rates – they have all one thing in common: we can’t control them.  Why do we think about these items if history has shown us that ‘this too shall pass’?  Keeping a long-term mindset helps shape positive investing and daily life perspectives.

 Conclusion:

Hopefully, these articles provide some insightful (and enjoyable!) weekend reading.  We look forward to sharing more articles periodically throughout the year.  In the meantime, as we mentioned earlier this week, if you’d like to discuss how the topics in these pieces may apply to your own portfolio, please do not hesitate to reach out to a member of our team.

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