Markets in a Minute

Should a U.S. Election Affect Your Asset Mix?

Published

4 years ago

October 30, 2020

Dorothy Neufeld

This Markets in a Minute Chart is available as a poster.

Should a U.S. Election Affect Your Asset Mix?

Should an Election Affect Your Asset Mix?

U.S. elections are a powerful force in investor psychology.

In fact, historically, investors pour more money into low-risk assets than equity investments surrounding election season. Following election years, investors reverse course and put their money back into equities.

This Markets in a Minute chart from New York Life Investments shows how investors have reacted to U.S. presidential elections over time, and why maintaining your long-term asset mix may be a better course of action.

Market Behavior During U.S. Elections

While investors allocated funds into safe assets in election years, what happened to the market?

	Average S&P 500 Returns in Presidential Election Years (1928-2016)
New president is elected	9.3%
Incumbent president win	13.4%
All election years	11.3%

Source: Morningstar (Dec, 2019)

On average, the market has returned 11.3% in election years over the last century.

Markets also appear to prefer familiarity—when the incumbent president won, the S&P 500 averaged higher returns. Alongside this, it made no difference if a Democrat or Republican candidate won.

Implications for the 2020 Election

Still, with mail-in voting controversy and the anticipation of a results dispute, the 2020 presidential run has stoked greater volatility in financial markets. What reference point can we make to previously contested results?

Following the 2000 results between Al Gore and George Bush, investor fear ran rampant. Markets fell 1.6% when no winner was clearly determined. Compare this to the 2016 presidential run, when markets jumped 1% the day after the election.

But while short-term impacts of U.S. elections cause heightened uncertainty, it’s important to analyze if it’s an emotional or rational decision being made in response to market unrest.

Opportunity Costs

While investors typically run to safe-haven assets during these cycles, the table below illustrates how this may be less optimal for their portfolios.

	U.S. Treasury Bill (T-Bill) Rates
8 Week T-bill	0.09%
26 Week T-bill	0.11%
52 Week T-bill	0.13%

Source: U.S. Treasury (Dec, 2020)

Instead of paying attention to unknown variables inherent in every market, investors can focus on what the numbers are saying.

Building a Resilient Portfolio

So how can investors stay the course during election season?

Broad historical trends show that in spite of unique events, money in the stock market positively increases over time. Staying invested in your long-term asset mix can help capture these overarching trends.

One-off events such as an election provide an opportunity to take advantage of temporarily lower prices. This, coupled with the higher volatility levels that accompany election cycles, offer an avenue for your portfolio to be more resilient as it helps strengthen portfolio returns.

The diminishing returns of cash compound this effect. Over the last decade, cash returned close to 0%. These return rates could fall even lower in the years ahead as interest rates decline.

In short, it’s impossible to predict the future. Instead, equities and other fixed income investments have offered a number of advantages. Macroeconomic factors, such as falling interest rates and the supply of capital, have only highlighted this trend.

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Markets in a Minute

The Top 5 Reasons Clients Fire a Financial Advisor

Firing an advisor is often driven by more than cost and performance factors. Here are the top reasons clients ‘break up’ with their advisors.

Published

2 weeks ago

April 15, 2024

Dorothy Neufeld

This circle graphic shows the top reasons for firing a financial advisor.

The Top 5 Reasons Clients Fire a Financial Advisor

What drives investors to fire a financial advisor?

From saving for a down payment to planning for retirement, clients turn to advisors to guide them through life’s complex financial decisions. However, many of the key reasons for firing a financial advisor stem from emotional factors, and go beyond purely financial motivations.

We partnered with Morningstar to show the top reasons clients fire an advisor to provide insight on what’s driving investor behavior.

What Drives Firing Decisions?

Here are the top reasons clients terminated their advisor, based on a survey of 184 respondents:

Reason for Firing	% of Respondents Citing This Reason	Type of Motivation
Quality of financial advice and services	32%	Emotion-based reason
Quality of relationship	21%	Emotion-based reason
Cost of services	17%	Financial-based reason
Return performance	11%	Financial-based reason
Comfort handling financial issues on their own	10%	Emotion-based reason

Numbers may not total 100 due to rounding. Respondents could select more than one answer.

While firing an advisor is rare, many of the primary drivers behind firing decisions are also emotionally driven.

Often, advisors were fired due to the quality of the relationship. In many cases, this was due to an advisor not dedicating enough time to fully grasp their personal financial goals. Additionally, wealthier, and more financially literate clients are more likely to fire their advisors—highlighting the importance of understanding the client.

Key Takeaways

Given these driving factors, here are five ways that advisors can build a lasting relationship through recognizing their clients’ emotional needs:

Understand your clients’ deeper goals
Reach out proactively
Act as a financial coach
Keep clients updated
Conduct goal-setting exercises on a regular basis

By communicating their value and setting expectations early, advisors can help prevent setbacks in their practice by adeptly recognizing the emotional motivators of their clients.

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Markets in a Minute

The Top 5 Reasons Clients Hire a Financial Advisor

Here are the most common drivers for hiring a financial advisor, revealing that investor motivations go beyond just financial factors.

Published

2 weeks ago

April 15, 2024

Dorothy Neufeld

This circle graphic shows the top reasons for hiring a financial advisor.

The Top 5 Reasons Clients Hire a Financial Advisor

What drives investors to hire a financial advisor?

From saving for a down payment to planning for retirement, clients turn to advisors to guide them through life’s complex financial decisions. However, many of the key reasons for hiring a financial advisor stem from emotional factors, and go beyond purely financial motivations.

We partnered with Morningstar to show the top reasons clients hire a financial advisor to provide insight on what’s driving investor behavior.

What Drives Hiring Decisions?

Here are the most common reasons for hiring an advisor, based on a survey of 312 respondents.

Reason for Hiring	% of Respondents Citing This Reason	Type of Motivation
Specific goals or needs	32%	Financial-based reason
Discomfort handling finances	32%	Emotion-based reason
Behavioral coaching	17%	Emotion-based reason
Recommended by family or friends	12%	Emotion-based reason
Quality of relationship	10%	Emotion-based reason

Numbers may not total 100 due to rounding. Respondents could select more than one answer.

While financial factors played an important role in hiring decisions, emotional reasons made up the largest share of total responses.

This illustrates that clients place a high degree of importance on reaching specific goals or needs, and how an advisor communicates with them. Furthermore, clients seek out advisors for behavioral coaching to help them make informed decisions while staying the course.

Key Takeaways

With this in mind, here are five ways advisors can provide value to their clients and grow their practice:

Address clients’ emotional needs early on
Demonstrate how you can offer support
Use ordinary language
Provide education to help clients stay on track
Acknowledge that these are issues we all face

By addressing emotional factors, advisors can more effectively help clients’ navigate intricate financial decisions and avoid common behavioral mistakes.

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