13 Mar 2025 The Next Best Decision
I was recently reviewing some old financial information at Vanguard (financial planners have fun hobbies) and came across the following transaction from almost a decade ago that I had forgotten about:
I had sold 12.166 shares of Apple (this was pre-split, so this would be 48.664 shares today) for a little over $1,000. Today, that would be worth over $10,000, not even including dividends. When I explained what I found to my wife Megan, she jokingly asked well why’d you sell it then?!
It is a fair question, but context is important here. I purchased those shares with money I earned working in high school at Chick-fil-A. I was interested in financial markets at that point and wanted to dabble in investments. If I had kept the original investment, it would have been my best investment I’ve ever made – up over 900% since the original investment.
It is easy in hindsight to critique that decision, but that isn’t the full story. During that time, I was only a few months away from graduating college. I had my mind on using the money to start off on my own and even to later help purchase an engagement ring to propose to Megan. I saw a need for funds for pivotal things in my life and made the next best decision that I could with the information that I had at the time.
I was pondering this idea of making the next best decision with regards to the current market volatility. The volatility index, the VIX as people call it, has increased over the last few weeks due to uncertainty in the market. There tends to be a lot more conversation and attention paid to the market as the volatility increases. It is easy to get swept away in the up and down daily movements of the stock market. When things are changing quickly, what are we to do?
I think one posture that we can take is to focus on making the next best decision. You can’t make every decision at once, so what is the next best one you can make? For some, that may be to pay attention to the news less. For others, it may be to monitor spending and decide what is needed right now vs an item you can delay to limit withdrawals. For a lot of us, the answer might be to just do nothing. Market changes are something to be aware of, but aren’t something that should keep you up at night with worry. The important piece is to think about the big picture and the choices in front of you and go one step at a time. Boil the options down to their simplest form.
Long-term financial success is rarely one big decision that changes everything. It more often looks like making small decisions and letting those decisions compound on each other over time. It is normal to get caught up in the news cycle, but try to slow down and think through the choices that you can make and focus on the next best decision for your situation. If you are a Beacon client, you work with us so that we can pay attention to the markets for you and help you through those decision points. If you are ever in that position of needing advice, let us help you along the way.
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