It's been a doozy of a week for the stock market. With major indexes tumbling, a lot of investors no doubt lost sleep these past few days watching their portfolio values tank.
I'm quite certain my retirement portfolio took a hit, too. But I don't know exactly how much of a hit.
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The reason? I didn't check. In fact, I didn't do anything with my stock portfolio in the wake of this week's market events. And I think taking no action is the smartest thing I could've done.
Why I refuse to let a turbulent week rattle me
If you're sitting here worried about your investment portfolio following this past week, I don't blame you one bit. But if you're like me where retirement is decades away, there's actually no need to stress about a market setback.
This isn't the first time a market correction has happened, and I'm quite certain it won't be the last. But one thing it's important to keep in mind is that stock market downturns are normal.
The other thing to remember is that if you keep your cool during a market decline and don't sell off investments when they're down, you won't lock in losses in your portfolio. Rather, if you do what I did and keep your portfolio intact, you can set yourself up to wait out a period of volatility and enjoy an eventual recovery.
To be clear, I'm not saying I was thrilled to see stock values tank this past week. But at this point, I've been through market downturns more times than I can count. So rather than take action every time something like this happens, I remind myself to think long term and stick to my investment plan, which is to load up on a diverse mix of quality assets and hold them for many years.
The best reaction is to not react
I know that if I were to check my retirement portfolio right now, I'd probably see some upsetting numbers on my laptop screen. That's why I'm not going to check. There's no point in putting myself through that when I don't need my retirement portfolio for many years.
However, I'll say this: Earlier this year, I expected some degree of volatility with a new presidential administration at the helm and new economic policies coming down the pike.
So one thing I did at the start of 2025 was do a portfolio checkup. That's always a good thing to do following a year of strong market gains, because when some assets gain more value than others, it can lead to an imbalance.
I discovered just that. So I purposely unloaded some stocks I was too concentrated in to limit my exposure.
The time to do a portfolio rebalance generally is not in the midst of a market downturn. But what you may want to do if you're years away from retirement is ride out this wave of volatility, and then do a checkup once things settle.
You may find that some changes are needed in your portfolio. But chances are, right now's not the ideal time to make them.
