DR CHET SPEVENS | Finance Expert | CONTACT
As the third most popular financial advice guru in Australia – behind the Barefoot Investor and Davo down the pub who knows a thing or two about horses – I’ve helped countless Aussies get up and out of debt and in control of their finances.
And investing in the ASX is one way to do just that.
But over the last few weeks, a number of readers have written in to say that despite equities markets having a better first half than many expected, their ASX portfolio is performing terribly.
With so much money lost, they’re now looking for someone to blame.
Well, when it comes to finding a financial scapegoat there’s none better than the economy itself, let me tell you.
Here are some powerful ways you can blame the economy for your portfolio’s terrible performance, and they won’t cost you a cent.
PRETEND THE ECONOMY IS A PERSON – A lifeless concept like the economy can’t be blamed, so pretend it is a real person. Think of it as a crazed maniac that runs around the town square with its pants around its ankles screaming, ‘Yeehaw I pooped me pants again, I pooped em,’ while innocent bystanders look on in horror and shield their young children’s eyes. Realise that it is this person who is in charge of your portfolio’s performance. No wonder you’re losing money.
BELIEVE YOU’RE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ECONOMIC CYCLE – Like most things in life, investing is all about timing. And you’ve timed your investments at the peak of the inverse volatile upside down bottom of the economic cycle – whatever that means.
So blame your portfolio’s terrible performance on the fact that at this stage of the economic cycle, it’s completely normal for every investment of yours to tank so bad that even glimpsing your portfolio makes you weep uncontrollably. This way, you’ll be able to fool yourself that things will get better once the economic cycle transitions to the vertical upside profit stage again – whenever that is.
It is a powerful realisation knowing you can blame the economy for your portfolio’s terrible performance. It’s what keeps a lot of investors going. If we couldn’t blame the economy, then we could only blame ourselves for our ongoing losses, and that wouldn’t be much fun now, would it?
