How the coming decade plays out is going to be different than the last three years and the last 10 years. Change may be a constant, but it seems to have accelerated thanks to COVID-19.
The record is very clear: assuming the past will straight-line through the future is incorrect. The trends will change. A simple buy-hold strategy with the same weighting used over the last two business cycles will not get you where you want to go over the next two cycles.
Our bias is that, in the long run, economic trends and valuations matter. We are not ones to chase momentum plays. There is obviously a place for that in your portfolio, but in our world that approach falls shy of protecting your wealth while growing it through investing in the future.
This is a highly priced stock market. That doesn’t mean it is about to come tumbling down all around us. There are signs that the market can stay “overpriced” for quite some time. There will be signs when that is coming to an end. We are working on those signals, along with the Optimizer Model, to protect investors during business cycle fluctuations in the market. While that aspect of investing is very important, it is also important to think through asset allocation within the context of America’s Decade. For that we turn to outside experts. Two will join us for the December 15 webinar.
Chris Didier is managing director of Baird Family Wealth. Chris will join us to share his personal views on the changing financial landscape and how investors can best protect their wealth and ensure the viability of their retirement plans. Chris is a long-time friend of ours, and we are excited to have him on the program.
Clark Bellin is the principal and investment strategist at Bellwether Wealth. If you have listened to enough prior ITR webinars, you have heard us mention Clark and Bellwether Wealth. Clark is going to join us to talk about the ITR Optimizer Model, how it works for individual investors, and how it drives alpha within the larger context of financial planning.
What Chris and Clark say dovetails very well with ITR Economics’ view of the road ahead, within an expertise that we don’t have. Building the knowledge base and seeing the road signs are crucial for maximizing your wealth as we go forward. How you got here isn’t how you are going to get to the goal line.