By Bryan Novak, Astor Investment Management – Senior Managing Director & Portfolio Manager
Fed-watching. Oil prices. The latest geopolitical headline. All sources of anxiety, some of them manufactured. The real question is, what should you be focusing on?
Even as markets persist near all-time highs, volatility not indicating too much concern, the subconscious anxiety appears to be growing. As we’ve seen in recent years (and, more recently, during Brexit) any number of things can create uncertainty in the market and cause investors to make a kneejerk reaction. The key is avoiding that.
Such event-driven market gyrations raise the questions about how investment professionals and their clients should make portfolio decisions. How you construct your portfolio goes a long way in how you view market activity. While there is no shortage of so-called rationale for buying and selling (as the cable TV pundits will attest), solid portfolio allocation decisions require equally solid rationale.
In other words — What are you looking at?