We had some scary market moves at the end of 2018. But so far, in 2019, things are recovering quickly.
Rather than wait for the next big bear market, why not start a de-risking strategy now? In this article, we correlate reducing portfolio risk with de-icing a car.
Anybody who has lived in a cold climate knows what de-icing a car is like. If you’ve ever deiced a car you’ll get a chuckle out of this story and see how you can apply it to de-risking your retirement money.
I was in my 20’s, living in Colorado (Grand Junction on the western slope) and was in a hurry one morning, so I scraped only a small peephole in the ice on my windshield. If I scrunched down in my car seat I could just peer out of the hole and see. I made it about a mile down the road when an officer pulled me over. He probably figured if he couldn’t see in through the ice, I probably couldn’t see out either.
He poked his head in my car and with an exaggerated slow twist at the neck he made an attempt to peer out the front windshield. Then he turned and stared at me. All I could do was shrug my shoulders, smile, and say, “I was in a hurry.”
Amazingly enough, he didn’t give me a ticket. He did make me sit there until all the ice had melted off. I understand. I made a bad choice about risk and return. Driving with an ice-covered windshield isn’t smart. Being in a hurry doesn’t make it any smarter.
