Sell Off or Stay the Course? When to Re-Evaluate Your Investment Portfolio

​It has been a truly turbulent year filled with unprecedented events and wild swings in the American economy and global financial markets. As trusted, fee-only Fiduciary financial planners, we field many calls from new clients who are suddenly very worried about their mutual funds investment, asset management, risk management, and more.

There are times when reassessing your investment portfolio makes sense. But believe it or not, a stock market crash—heck, even a global pandemic—may not be one of those times. Before you call your Certified Financial Planner to pitch your current portfolio and put everything into a high yield savings account, ask yourself a few questions.

​Building wealth with assets takes smart financial planning, and a good Certified Financial Planner plans for the unexpected. At Oak Street Advisors, our long-range forecasts for our clients always assume a few years of harder times. No matter what you see on the news, if you have a good, long-term financial plan with the right level of risk management, you are probably still on track to meet your personal financial goals.

And if the landscape has shifted in ways that make a difference to your asset management, you should not have to make the first call. A good financial planner will reach out to you!

If you don’t have a personalized financial plan in place, the time to reach out for fee-only investment portfolio advice is right now.

It may surprise you to hear that the most seismic events in your financial life are likely to be personal, not global. Are you thinking about getting married? Do you have a first child or a new child on the way? Are you contemplating a divorce? Have you been diagnosed with a significant illness or been in an accident? Have you been recently widowed?

Your Certified Financial Planner will most likely not hear about some of these changes in your life unless you share the news directly. Whether the news is good, we will adjust your financial plan to maximize its value. If the news is bad, we will minimize its impact on your long-term financial goals. (And no matter what, we care about you and want to know how you are doing.)

​Seeing the stock market swoon or the jobless numbers rise on the news is one thing. Having your own (or your spouse’s) compensation cut or being offered an early retirement package or losing your current position is quite another. Now, it’s personal—and it will likely impact your financial plan.

There are less catastrophic shifts in your finances that can also change your long-term financial forecast. Are you enrolling a child in private school? Is one of your children starting, or stepping away from, their college education? Have you decided to retire early, or buy a big boat, or invest in a second home or timeshare?

We can help! Your Certified Financial Planner has strategies to get you through short-term or long-term hardships. We can advise you on how to leverage your investment portfolio to access cash, we can let you know if you can take an early retirement, and we can show you how to adjust your personal financial plan to still meet your retirement goals. We can also show you how to roll over a 529 college savings plan to another child in your family or use it to shelter private school tuition from some taxation.

Did one of your best friends share a tip about a hot new stock? Does your co-worker have a different investment strategy that they are sure will really pay off? It can be difficult to hear success stories at the office or the neighborhood barbecue without wondering if their advice might also be good for you.
​
As fee-only Certified Financial Planners, we focus on long term investment strategies rather than the outlook of individual stocks. If we see a big opportunity, we will always let you know, and if you are intrigued by a particular stock, we will encourage you to speak to your investment advisor for investment portfolio advice.​FOMO—or Fear of Missing Out—drives more terrible investment decisions than most people realize. By the time you are hearing about the success of a particular stock, it is likely ready to plateau or plunge, and someone else’s retirement plan is not designed around your personal financial situation and financial goals. Remember: you don’t have to take risks just to take risks. Staying on track to a comfortable retirement is a real reward.

​Oak Street’s fee-only Certified Financial Planners build in an annual review of every single one of our client’s personal financial plans to ensure they are optimized for the coming year. And if we see trouble or opportunities ahead? We will sit down with you, share our years of experience, and reset your personal financial plan to ensure that you still reach those long-term goals.