Following Market Trends: without losing a good night’s sleep

As a corporate publicity agent, Stephanie Rowland (fictitious person) earns a good salary and invests in equities. She believes good investments should climb rapidly. When a friend brags about a stock that’s going through the roof, Stephanie can’t sleep at night, worried she’s missing out.

Her husband, Daniel (fictitious), is a construction general contractor. He believes good investments should never fall below their original price. Daniel can’t sleep at night when the stock market takes a crazy nosedive.

Reacting to Trends

We know how they feel. We, too, watch markets react as events unfold. Our hearts sink when the market plunges and soar when it rises. And if a stock stagnates for months, we feel impatient.

The Rowlands want what we all want: to dodge negative trends and take advantage of positive trends. Wouldn’t that be great?

But market trends move fast. By the time Stephanie and Daniel react, it’s too late to mitigate losses or capture gains. Why? Because big institutional investors use supercomputers to analyze trillions of bits of data and automatically execute huge, rule-based trades. For them, fast execution is so important that they measure speed-advantage in nanoseconds.

Investing for Real People

The Rowlands shouldn’t try to outguess daily trends or outthink supercomputers for the sake of short-term results. They (and most individuals and families) should set financial goals and then explore opportunities and risks, looking for investments with the potential to give them the best chances of reaching their goals with the least risk.

At James River Financial Advisors, we’re trained and experienced in analyzing financial possibilities and probabilities. And through our broker/dealer, we have access to expertise in a broad range of investment types to help us implement best practices and communicate timely information so that you can make informed decisions about risks and rewards.

Using a Repeatable Process 

Before we invest your money, we want to understand your situation, goals, and attitudes, so we use a risk tolerance questionnaire to guide your choices:

Goals: Identifying how and when you want to spend your money and the amount of risk you can tolerate while accumulating wealth

Asset Allocation: Selecting asset classes based on time horizons and your need for security, growth, and income

Investing: Mapping specific financial products to your asset allocation model

This process isn’t a one-time task. We walk with you through every stage of your financial life, adjusting plans and strategies as your circumstances change.

Adjusting Your Portfolio

This month’s newsletter includes valuable information about how we map specific financial products to your portfolio using your asset allocation model. If you have questions, we invite you to give us a call and schedule a planning session.

Meanwhile, go to our website and request a risk tolerance questionnaire to gain perspective on your financial life. To reach your financial objectives, you should take only as much risk as you need and tolerate.

Managing Your Wealth

Stephanie and Daniel realized they needed to develop a strategy for dealing with risks and rewards. Otherwise, they would constantly be reacting to headlines, either to protect their portfolio or to jump on an upward trend.

With a financial plan in place, they no longer feel the need for knee-jerk reactions. They’ve positioned their assets to achieve financial goals despite short-term volatility, and with a level of risk they can both tolerate.

Now they can both sleep at night.