About last night

EXTRA News

Whatever your politics, it has been clear in recent weeks and months that the prospect of a Trump presidency held enough uncertainty to make investors and world leaders alike more than a little nervous. No one likes uncertainty.

So here we are, asking ourselves what’s next?

We suggest that you hold fast to this: the resilience that’s built into your financial plan and your portfolio will continue to serve you.  The dollar was down earlier this morning but since half your investments are outside the US, the returns to that part of the portfolio actually just got a boost. Not to mention the fact that, whatever the stock market futures were doing last night (at one point the Dow futures were down 800 points), most markets this morning are basically unchanged. At the end of the day, the US and world economy are too vast and too diverse to be sunk by any president.  It has always been a truism among economists that presidents have less impact on the economy than people think. As in, they shouldn’t get credit when things go well and they shouldn’t get blame when they don’t, in most cases the president had little or nothing to do with it.

We also just had a text exchange with our niece in which she noted, somewhat surprised, “today I woke up and the world looked the same.” Indeed. For all the political maneuvering to come and for all the breathless headlines and overwrought CNN interviews (we think we’ll take a break from CNN, by the way, for the sake of our mental well-being), in most of the ways that matter to your finances, the world looks the same this morning.

Which is not to say that the list of escapist novels on our Kindle isn’t about to get a lot longer.

Peace.