Since 2020 members of the Ruedi Wealth team have been writing weekly investing and retirement planning columns for our local newspaper, The News-Gazette.
When people buy goods, they often focus only on the purchase price when considering the financial implications. What takes a little more foresight is considering how much that thing will cost you in the future.
As a financial advisor I can’t help but notice when people build walls and trap themselves financially. It often happens slowly, or doesn’t seem like a serious issue at first, only for a person to discover the seriousness of the issue when it is far too late.
What was hyped as the investment of the century turned out to be yet another cautionary tale about the dangers of chasing the hot stock of the day. Though some initial investors had the chance to come out ahead, almost every post-IPO buyer of SpaceX is currently sitting on losses.
When people hear valuations are close to where they were during the dot-com bubble and subsequent crash, many want to abandon their investments until after an “inevitable” crash occurs. But is that a good idea?
We began writing weekly newspaper columns in April of 2020. At the end of that month, the S&P 500 index closed at 2,912.43. Hovering around 7,000 these days, the S&P 500 has more than doubled since then. But if those six years seemed like an ideal time to be an investor, think again.
When the market faces adversity in the future, as it inevitably will, investors will once again be tested. At that point though they will be tempted to think “this time is different.” They should instead focus on the fact that “this too shall pass.”