Don’t Worry About Geopolitical Events

I’ve been reading Ask Carrie, a blog over at Charles Schwab, and there was a recent post that caught my eye where a reader was concerned about geopolitical events such as the continued Iraq war, Iran troubles, and North Korean issues; and how they could adjust their portfolio or adjust their retirement planning to help mitigate these risks.

In short, Carrier recommends that you do nothing if you are already following a prudent investing strategy of diversification and risk mitigation in the first place. If you look towards history and see what has happened in the past and how the markets have responded, you’ll see that “The value of the financial assets goes up, dips in response to destabilizing events, and then continues to rise.”

There’s no sense in worrying about the things you can’t control such as what’s going to happen with Iran because you can’t control them. Just try to control the things you can such as a saving a proper amount, diversifying your assets, and being smart with your money – those things will get you farther than tweaking your investments in response to those macroeconomic issues.