Plans & Guesses

This sketch by Carl Richards is called “Plans and Guesses.” It makes sense. Making guesses about the short-term direction of the market can damage your long-term financial plan because it causes you to deviate from it—either chasing past returns by buying high (exuberance) or capturing losses by selling low (fear/panic).  At Bridge Financial Strategies, we focus on long-term historical market returns when it comes to investing for your financial plan because no one can reliably predict what the market will do in the short term. As Carl Richards depicts here, those guesses can be a bad idea when they cross with your long-term plan.