There it is! The dreaded black swan! Fabled to eat investors retirement nest eggs in a single gulp.
With the market having cooled off over the past month you may start to hear about these in the news. Talking heads in the investment world love to spread tales of the havoc they have wrought to strike fear into the hearts of investors.
A black swan is a term in the investment world used to describe the scariest of scary situations: the crash no one sees coming. We’ll hear talk about these from time to time when commentators aren’t sure what’s going on in the market. Following the “It’s quiet…. too quiet” logic they assume the worst and look for potential signs of market irregularities to try to make their worst nightmare a reality. Remember that whatever facts they point to are no more likely to predict the market than anything else and you also have a big can of swan repellent called a diversified portfolio.
So, don’t let any giant bird metaphors scare you out of having your portfolio set up to meet your retirement needs. And as always take the news with a grain of salt.