It’s done and decided. Trump wins.
Markets are actually rallying today and reacting relatively calmly.
Will your investment portfolio be OK? Yes.
As always, what happens in the short-term is unpredictable. And that’s OK since we are investors, not speculators. We accept short-term unpredictability in exchange for the longer-term probability of success that is stacked in our favor.
America still works. People wake up, head to work, bringing their creativity, brains, will and optimism and set out to make better lives for themselves and their families. That creates a system where people with vision require capital to fund their plans. And they pay a reward for the privilege of having access to other people’s capital. That system is alive, intact and functioning and no one president ends that. Your wealth is at work across the entire global economic system and it’s all still humming along.
A Trump presidency will have an economic impact that, frankly, is hard to predict. That’s in part because Trump has not spelled out in great detail what his plan is and in part because what happens when he takes office might look quite different from what he expressed during his campaign.
But that’s OK. The essence of diversification is to have a portfolio able to withstand a whole variety of economic climates. Our portfolios are well designed to capture the global growth that is sure to continue in the years ahead regardless of who sits in the White House now and in the future.
Investing is fundamentally a challenge centered around keeping our focus on maintaining a proven strategy in the midst of endless distractions tempting us off course.
This reminds us of Odysseus, the wandering protagonist of Homer’s Odyssey. Odysseus had a healthy fear of temptation. In Greek mythology, sailors were regularly lured to their deaths by Sirens, creatures who sang a beautiful and irresistible song. Entranced by the song, these sailors steered toward the call and were dashed to pieces on the rocks. In order to avoid this fate, Odysseus ordered his crew to plug their ears with beeswax and to tie him firmly to the ship’s mast. On hearing the Sirens’ song, Odysseus himself could not resist and begged to be untied, but since he had instructed his crew to ignore him, they refused his pleas. Thus, the ship was able to sail safely past danger; but only because Odysseus was smart enough not to underestimate the power of temptation.
There’s likely to continue to be some media commentary in the days ahead that delivers very tempting reasons to veer off course. We are here to remind you that these commentaries remain siren songs. Hold the course – it has always been the best strategy. We may have to weather storms, but we’ll avoid dashing our ship on the rocks.
