Beating Back Fear For Income Investors

Whenever there is market volatility -- especially downward volatility -- certain kinds of articles spring up on Seeking Alpha and other sites like crabgrass in the summer. You know the kinds I mean. They have titles like "Buy And Hold Fails Again," or "What To Do About The Coming Crash," or "Market Downturn Is Inevitable; Time To Go To Cash?" The common theme is fear. Fear of losing money as prices slide downward for who knows how long. Fear of giving up in just a few weeks or days the gains that it took several years to achieve. Fear of falling behind a benchmark and never catching up. Fear of underperforming your neighbor.

If you notice, there are a couple of overarching themes that run through all of the suggestions. One is patience. Seeing things from a longer perspective usually helps. This may be especially hard for very young (restless) or very old (retired) investors: Both groups may believe or feel that they must see results now. My suggestion would be to try to reframe that feeling, break it down into pieces, and see whether it really makes sense. Perhaps there is another point of view that would relieve the pressure and still be believable to you. The other overarching theme is to step back and take a larger view. Try to put small phenomena into a larger context. Try to place short-term events into a longer timeline, thus creating a less fearful perspective.

Source: Seeking Alpha

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