Oakland, CA | Piedmont; Managing Tech Volatility with Your Financial Planner

Hi, I’m Eric Wolfers. I’m the founder and managing member of First & Main Financial. We’ve been helping clients realize their financial goals since 2001. We only ever operate in the best interest of our clients and to the highest fiduciary standard. There is a written fiduciary standard, but there are people that operate at a higher level of ethics, so we always encourage people to work with someone that’s like us—if they don’t want to work with us.

Today I want to talk a little bit about current events in the market. I spoke not too long ago about a small dominant set of stocks that are making the most money in the stock market right now. Brand name firms that are generating a tremendous amount of profit. There’s been a lot of interest in those stocks lately and they recently have been driven up a lot and price.

It’s been an interesting pattern because when the market dropped at the most rapid rate ever back in March of this year because of the global pandemic, people wanted the pain to end, they wanted to be out of the market. When it rebounded, people couldn’t believe that it rebounded that fast and then they wanted to be out of the market. I would say as of late we’ve gotten in a little bit of a bubble phase where everybody wants to be in the market, especially in the brand name tech stocks.

It’s unlikely that most firms will hold dominant position forever and generate the profits that they do at the rate they do. We’ve had an interesting cycle this year of greed and fear, or vacillation between greed and fear. I got a call yesterday from someone disappointed because tech stocks were down strong and it was hurting and that’s the risk of trying to jump in at what might be the end of a cycle, where there’s been tremendous demand for a certain set of stocks. This is how you lose money; things have gone too far too fast and you’re in a little bit of a bubble environment, you jump in right at the end and it hurts when you lose money.

We always think of investing in terms of decades, or the relevant time frame for somebody’s life depending on how old they are. If you’re invested in a diversified fashion, you should not lose money. You should be in a position where you have enough liquidity to ride out market volatility so that you never actually sustain losses in the stock market.

Be careful of greed and fear and know how long you’re Investing for and why—and know the things that you’re invested in.

We have clients who are competent investors but they just don’t want to watch it, or have their emotions pulled around by feeling like they’re responsible for the choices inside of their accounts. We’re happy to talk with you and we’re taking on new clients all the time. If you are looking for some financial guidance; whether for a one time financial plan or continuing advice on your investments, we invite you to meet with a First & Main Financial planner for a free consultation. We would be more than happy to sit down with you, assess your situation and review our services to help navigate your financial future.