You probably aren’t too worried about it, but April is Stress Awareness Month.
The Health Resource Network annually sponsors this month to inform people about the dangers of stress and to share successful coping strategies.
Obviously, it’s important to reduce stress in all walks of life — including your investment activities.
Here are a few possible “stress-busters” for that:
• Know your risk tolerance. If you constantly worry about your investments' value, your portfolio may be too volatile for your individual risk tolerance. Conversely, if you always feel that your investments will never provide the growth you need to achieve long-term goals, you might be investing too conservatively.
• Know what to expect. Uncertainty is often a leading cause of stress. So when you purchase investments that are mysterious to you, you shouldn’t be surprised if they perform in ways that raise your stress levels. Never invest in something unless you fully understand its characteristics and risk potential.
• Be prepared for market volatility. Over the long term, the financial markets have trended upward, though their past performance can’t guarantee future results. Yet for months, and even years, these same markets can sputter and decline. So when you invest, be aware of this volatility; if you’re prepared for it, you won’t be shocked when it happens, and you should be able to better keep stress at bay.
• Maintain realistic expectations. If you think your investments will earn a very high rate of return, year after year, you likely will be disappointed. You’re much better off, from a stress standpoint, not to expect eye-popping results.
• Diversify your portfolio. If you were only to own one asset class, such as growth stocks, and that particular segment took a big hit during a market drop, your whole portfolio could suffer, and it could take years to recover — causing you no end of stress.
But if you spread your investment dollars among a range of vehicles — stocks, bonds, government securities and so on — your portfolio has a better chance of weathering the market's ups and downs. (While diversification may help you reduce the effects of volatility, it can’t prevent losses or guarantee profits.)
• Think long term. If you measure investment success by short-term results, you can feel frustrated and stressed. But when you stop to consider your objectives, you may find that the most important ones, such as a comfortable retirement, are all long-term in nature. Consequently, it makes more sense to measure progress with your investments in periods of years, or even decades, rather than days or months.
Stress Awareness Month will come and go, but making the right moves now can take away some stress from investing for a long time to come.
Joe Faulk is a financial adviser.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: FINANCIAL FOCUS: Help yourself reduce investment stress