The US market had good bull run for more than 11 years, and for the last few years, investors have been trying to guess which of those bad events happened were Black Swan. Unfortunately or fortunately, none of those (North Korea, Iran, Trade War, etc) are.
Now we have a perfect STORM, started with the COVID19 pandemic, oil crisis, disruption to global and regional supply chain, panic and huge dipped in consumers confidence.
It's been 4 mths now since the pandemic first created havoc and now hitting the global economy hard. It doesnt seem to be getting better but stock market has rallied since Mar. correction.
I thought I'll pen down my thoughts on my investment mindset during crisis like this, hopefully it can serve as a useful guide for you my kids in future when you start your investing journey. Even Warren Buffet has not seen this, and I believe you will faced with many more of these Black Swan events in your invest life time that is to come.
Cash Position
Below age of 30;
Prepare about 9mths of cash funds so that in the event whatever work you are doing has to be stopped (like now 2020), you have some cash to tide you over. As you will most likely be still staying with us, this amount should suffice.
After you have save your first pot of $50K, then you can start thinking about investing.
When you have more commitments and family, make sure you keep 3 years of expenses that your family will need. In this crisis, I have seen families and society been stressed tested and many people lost their jobs while their kids are still young. Without the 3 years of expenses as buffer, you will faced with immersed stress.
Lastly, always have 30% of cash warchest, ready to be deployed when necessary, like in Mar 2020 when there were 4 circuit breakers for US index. Even Warren Buffet has not seen this in his lifetime. When you see and hear in the news that the major index e.g US index, keeps hitting higher high (like in 2019), increase your warchest position to 50%.
Strategy
When major index like Dow Jones and S&P500 crashed by 20% (like in Mar 2020), by definition, it is a bear market.
- In normal times, you are still investing in ETF, maybe once a month or a year.
- However, in crisis, Start to deploy your warchest and do it gradually as the worst can get more worst. Every 10% correction, deploy a certain percentage of your warchest.
- Buy the Global, S&P500 and STI ETF. This should form 90% of your portfolio.
- Most of the local stocks in your watchlist would have also fallen badly. E.g Reits and Blue chips fell more than 20% during the Mar 2020 crashed. Trust your evaluation metrics (using dividend, PE, PB, etc), and buy some. This should only form 10% or 20% of your portfolio.
- Trust me, when the crash like this happens, you will chicken out and tell your inner self to wait, and you will be ready scare to buy. When you have this feeling, actually, it is close to the right time to BUY. Forget about this inner self, just stick with your strategy.
Emotional
When the stock market crashed like in Mar 2020, the feeling is really lousy. It gets worst when you see that your portfolio has gone down by 20 to 30%. Do remember that life is not just about stock market, you still have family, friends, hobbies, etc. It is not the end, it will always bounce back like before. Importantly you must have a strategy and stick with it.
If it affects you emotionally, and if you cannot take this kind of correction in stock market, then just invest only 30% of your asset or talk to me ... haha ...
Happy investing, kids.
