When I woke up the day after the U.S. election to learn that Donald Trump would, once again, become president of the United States, the temptation to panic and sell my investments kicked in as it did in 2016. Then, I’d just quit my job, joining the ranks of people who are Financially Independent and Retired Early , and started living off the capital gains, dividends and interest of my portfolio.
But knowing that my portfolio not only survived the calamities of the past eight years, but thrived and doubled, gives me confidence to stay the course. If you find investing in the stock market terrifying, especially given this election result, you can use the three Ds of investing to stay calm and focused. that track specific indexes. For example, one of the ETFs I own in my portfolio is VTI which tracks the entire U.
Since I retired, I realized that you could build an additional level of retirement safety by keeping your basic living expenses within the dividend and interest income of your portfolio. Other “nice to have” things like travel can be paid for by selling stocks if you’ve just had a good year, but if you’ve just had a down year, you don’t have to.