Today’s investors can’t afford to be tied to inflexible buy-and-hold investment strategies. Those who do risk significant portfolio drawdowns in periods of extreme market stress. While traditional passive investment theory says “wait for the market to recover,” this may take years. The sequence of returns can be very harmful to investors, especially retirees, pre-retirees, or anyone with a need for withdrawals over the intermediate term.
Instead, clients should aim to preserve their wealth against whatever lies ahead in the market … while also seeking opportunities for growth. To help them do that, we apply three core principles to every portfolio: