FINANCIALLY
Speaking
1.
Jeffrey M. Orth is a
Chartered Financial
Consultant, a Certified
Advisor in Senior Living,
and an Investment Advisor
Representative, with over
15 years of experience as
a business and personal
planning, insurance,
and wealth management
specialist. Jeff is available for
group lectures and private
consultations. Visit integrated-
financialbenefits.com or call
408.842.2716.
The author’s opinions,
comments, information,
etc. are those solely his
own and are independent
of, and do not represent,
HTK, and should not be
considered as specific
investment or planning
advice. Please consider
your options based on your
individual circumstances.
Past performance is not
indicative of future returns.
gmhTODAY and other listed
entities are independent of
and unaffiliated with, HTK
and Integrated Financial
Benefits Network (IFit).
2080613RM-Apr20
24
Taming the Bear
I
t is not uncommon to read an article or
listen to a talk-show about positioning assets
to protect yourself from the “next great bear
market to come.” They rarely tell you when
the down turn will happen, but they are “sure it
will be pretty soon.”
It’s actually easy to position your portfolio
for a bear market if you know when it’s coming!
About a week before it starts, you position
all your investments in something designed to
protect you in a down market, or you take all
your money out of the market by placing it in
cash until just before the next bull market begins.
Easy, right?
The problem is no one knows, with any real
precision, when a bull market will start, or when
it will end. That doesn’t seem to stop economists
from guessing—and often guessing wrong. I have
never met anybody who was actually good at
timing the market consistently.
Since we have been experiencing one of the
longest bull markets in history, the media is
ramped up to get the scoop on the next major
downturn. By doing so, they cause people to
worry and second guess their long-term invest-
ment strategy—assuming they have one.
of all fees, including taxes. It’s not how much
you make but how much you keep that really
matters. A focus on cost without thoughtful
consideration of an investment’s real value is
short-sighted thinking at best.
4. Making investment decisions based on emotion
instead of logic. Emotion is a major reason that
many people enter or exit the market, but it
is seldom a good one. From my experience,
people who let their feelings dictate when they
buy or sell investments tend to purchase late in
an investment cycle and miss a lot of potential
growth. As hard as knowing when to get in is,
timing an exit from the market is even harder.
5. Forgetting long-term objectives, or even worse,
not having them. My clients all go through a
process with me that I call “lifeboat drills.” Being
prepared by discussing ahead of time what it’s
like to go through a major market correction
takes away a lot of the fear, and reduces the
urge to panic when t