Dear Friends,

We hope you are having a great start to the New Year! If you’ve read any news or talked to your neighbors, 🙂 you’re probably aware that 2025 will be bringing in some political changes. There are a lot of question marks and things we are keeping an eye on but here are a few points we like to remind clients and ourselves of during uncertain times.

1. Politics – Often a political party promises more than they can deliver, so time will tell what policies will actually be put in place and what impact they will have on the economy.
2. Economy – Thankfully the US economy is bigger than one person or political group. Investing in solid companies that can adapt to regulatory changes has proven to be a winning formula throughout history.
3. Diversification – No investment is guaranteed but diversification can reduce risk. Investing in a mixture of US stocks, International stocks, companies in various industries and sectors, and bonds helps spread out market risk. If one area is down, often other areas are doing well so it’s important to diversify your money to take part in what’s doing well.
4. Rebalancing – we will continue to “rebalance” the Schwab accounts, taking advantage of the ups and downs to keep the allocations in line with our targets and “buy low/sell high” in little bits over time.

We can’t predict the future but through sound investment strategies, we can reduce risk and help avoid financial catastrophe.

Thank you for allowing us to partner with you on your journey!

The IFS Team