SALT LAKE CITY — He has seen it before. Which is why, this time, Shane Stewart isn’t too worried about if the stock market will rebound.
“It always does. It always has,” he said. “And I am 99.9% sure it always will.”
Stewart is a longtime financial planner with Deseret Mutual Benefits Administrators and knows a lot of people are a little nervous after stocks dropped roughly 1,300 points in the past two days.
However, he has advice for those wondering if they should take their money out of the market.
“Really, it is a boring answer, I know, but it is always stay the course,” he said. “If you are properly diversified for a longer-term investment, then you are good.”
Stewart said what is happening with the stock market now is uncertainty.
Investors don’t like uncertainty, especially when the current administration is talking about tariffs with our closest trading partners.
“This particular administration is really looking at a hard course correction from the prior administration. Sometimes, administrations will come in and do things gradually. This administration really hit the ground running on their changes, and so, it gives uncertainty. It gives everyone uncertainty,” said Stewart. “We are not sure where they are headed, and so the markets will react to that uncertainty. That’s what’s really happening right now is an administration with a very aggressive agenda, and whether you agree with that agenda or not, it doesn’t matter, it’s just that it’s aggressive.”
Even though a country can impose a tariff on another country, the increased costs for goods get passed on to the consumer.
Right now, no one knows exactly what tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China will do to American consumers.
“That is probably one of the most uncertain things you can do to an economy because you’re not sure how the economy will react to the tariffs,” said Stewart. “The market doesn’t get into politics too much other than to see where the economy is heading, and that is what they are looking to find. I believe like every time that this happens, that once the market gets a little bit of certainty on where we are headed, that will help course correct.”
However, Stewart feels while the market is down, it is a great time to invest more.
In a way, he said, stocks right now are on sale.
“Eventually those times will go back up and your money that you put in will go with it,” said Stewart.
His best advice for the time being is to keep your money in the market and to look at the big picture when looking at your 401k savings.
“I like to tell people, when in doubt, zoom out,” said Stewart. “It might look bad the past couple of days, but if you zoom out and look at the past year or two, most likely you will see that things look better.”
