Financial Watch | May 2025

Building wealth to support your family’s desired lifestyle can take years of hard work. It requires a long-term focus and a vigilant approach to managing obstacles and challenges, including some that may not even be on your radar. Below are three common blind spots investors encounter along the path to accomplishing their goals, and steps to help you navigate them.

1. Emotional decision making
Emotional decision making can be a blind spot for even the most sophisticated investors. That’s because dramatic market dips trigger real emotions, like fear, anxiety, and loss of control. That can make it tempting to take equally dramatic action, like moving to cash following a sudden market downturn. While retreating to cash may protect you from further equity losses in the short term, it can’t safeguard against other key risk factors such as inflation or the potential that you’ll outlive your money because your portfolio didn’t provide the growth required to meet your long-term goals.

Taking money out of the equity markets while stock values are declining can have other long-term consequences as well, from cementing losses, to missing the best performing days as markets begin to recover and buying back in as prices are rising.

Navigating the market’s twists and turns with confidence requires an investment strategy aligned with your goals, timeframe, and tolerance for risk. Leaving the day-to-day decisions to professions can also help, especially when it comes to taking emotions out of the equation. That’s because experienced portfolio managers and analysts follow highly disciplined and repeatable investment management processes that include sophisticated due diligence, investment, and fund manager research and selection; strategic asset allocation and diversification; ongoing monitoring; and regular rebalancing. Best of all, when you choose professional portfolio management, you gain an experienced team working to support your goals and objectives every day, leaving you more time to focus on other important aspects of your life.

2. Inadequate emergency savings
A recent survey reports that 42% of Americans don't have an emergency savings fund and 40% say they couldn't cover a $1,000 emergency expense with cash or savings. Nonetheless, 60% say they experienced at least one unexpected expense over the past year.¹

During your working years, emergency savings can help protect against unanticipated expenses or income disruptions due to a job change or layoff. If you’re retired, your emergency fund can offer an alternative to drawing down on long-term assets during a steep or prolonged market decline. 

Adequate emergency savings can help you move closer to your other savings goals as well. Having liquid savings on hand may prevent you from taking on high-interest credit card or personal loan debt when confronted with an unexpected expense. And less money going to pay down debt means more money to support other goals, such as saving for retirement or a child’s education.

For most people, three to six months’ worth of living expenses is a good target. If you’re starting from zero, it will take time to get there. Begin by setting up automatic savings directly from your paycheck to a liquid account such as a bank savings or money market account. If your employer doesn’t offer the option to direct a portion of your paycheck to a savings account, consider setting up automatic transfers from your checking account to savings.

3. Gaps in insurance coverage
There’s a reason insurance is often considered the cornerstone of a firm financial foundation. It helps to protect the people and possessions that are most important to you, now and after you’re gone. Insurance helps to control certain risks that you or your family can’t afford to bear on your own, such as property loss, or the loss of income due to the disability or death of a primary income earner, which could adversely impact your family’s lifestyle.

Having the right insurance coverages can not only help protect your physical and financial assets but may help you move closer to your long-term goals, such as saving for retirement or leaving a legacy. As you plan for retirement, a primary goal is to make sure you’ll have sufficient assets to meet your essential expenses for several decades after you stop working, including healthcare expenses. Some insurance products, such as annuities, provide a guaranteed income in retirement and may include add-on benefits, such as life insurance or long-term-care insurance riders, based on your needs and goals.² Long-term-care insurance can also be purchased as a stand-alone policy to cover certain costs that Medicare and private health insurance plans do not, like nursing home care, assisted living, or in-home care. Your financial professional can help you determine if a long-term-care policy is an appropriate solution based on your age, current health, net worth, and policy benefits.

To learn more about strategies to pursue your long-term goals with confidence, contact the office to schedule a time to talk.

^{1) Giovanetti, Erika, “Survey: 42% of Americans Don't Have an Emergency Fund.” USNews.com, 22 JAN 2025,
https://www.usnews.com/banking/articles/2025-financial-wellness-survey.
2) Guarantees are based on the claims paying ability of the issuer.}