MORGANTOWN — While the drama surrounding the Trump administration’s tariff-backed economic strategy plays out daily on a global scale, the palpitations caused by the resulting market volatility are far more personal.
Edward Jones financial adviser Brian Kurcaba said that uncertainty is likely to continue — at least in the short term.
“The dialogue and the policy changes frequently based on the negotiations that are happening back and forth. Here more recently, some of those tariffs have been put on a 90-day delay for the implementation of those,” he explained, noting a sizable exception in the case of China. “The expectation is that over the next 90 days those tariffs that were first implemented on those other countries a week ago could be far different over the next 90 days. We don’t know how it’s going to work out yet.”
So, how do you weather the storm?
“The first thing is to make sure if you’ve got an investment portfolio — say, a retirement account — to make sure your portfolio is diversified according to your risk tolerance,” he said.
The second thing, he continued, is to try not to panic and let a short-term decision derail a long-term goal.
“Think back to different periods in history where there was high volatility in a short period of time, such as the COVID pandemic. When it first happened and the country and the world basically shut down, there was a tremendous amount of volatility during that time,” Kurcaba said. “But the folks who were resilient, and had the patience and weathered that and had a good investment portfolio, they were rewarded for it, you know, five years later. Ultimately, it was good for them, but in the short term, it was very difficult to weather it.”
The bottom line is there are never any guarantees.
“It’s hard sometimes to hold the line, but five years from now what will this look like? Will we even be talking about this?” Kurcaba asked. “We don’t know. That’s where the uncertainty and the fear come from. Most likely, folks who keep their nerve … they’ll handle it in the long term. It should work out for them, but that’s where the uncertainty comes in, because there’s no guarantee that will happen.”
