October 28, 2023 | Investing Volatility, PCE, Recession and Annuity Sales Continue to Grow

<p>Investing Volatility A recent client survey by Charles Schwab produced some viable insights during difficult times like this. Over the longer term 33% of investors attributed their greatest investing success to patience through volatility. It is hard to patient during the ups and downs, but the reality is when holding good quality investments, it has proven to always be the right thing to do. Unfortunately, patient doesn’t mean 2-3 months and sometimes it may mean 2-3 years. The funny thing is that even though that patience has always paid off, our emotions lead us to want to sell at the worst times and many people end up doing so costing themselves drastically in the long term. The second most cited reason for clients’ greatest investing success was careful research which came from 16% of respondents. We always tell people that before we step in and by a company, it’s at least 10-15 hours of research. This doesn’t mean you won’t have volatility, but it does give you more comfort in knowing and understanding your investments during the difficult times which allows you to be patient. The biggest culprit for an investors worst investment was lack of research with 20% saying this was the cause. This doesn’t surprise me as many people are quick to jump into the hype or invest in something because a friend or family member thought it was a good idea. Unfortunately, like the survey shows we have seen this work out poorly for many investors. Another big culprit for the worst investment was high risk with 13% of respondents citing this reason. In today’s society people want to try and make a quick return, but that is not how investing works. People want to try and get big returns and they end up losing massively. We tell our client’s a reasonable target should be around 8-12% in the longer term. Anything in excess of this and you are likely taking big risks that could put your portfolio in jeopardy.</p> <p> </p> <p>PCE There wasn’t much in the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE), which is the Fed’s pre