By Jeremy A. Wechsler, Esq.
Investment Advisor Representative
[email protected]
Hope you had a great Presidents’ Day and Valentine’s weekend! It warms my heart to hear the Phillies are heading down to Florida for spring training. I’ll be counting the days to spring, as the cold just isn’t for me.
Earlier this week, a headline in the Wall Street Journal read “In a Chaotic Market, Investors Learn How to Cope With Surprises” which really seems like a great way to summarize the year so far. Let’s be honest: When was the last time you checked your portfolio without checking the news first?
Because right now, headlines—not fundamentals—are driving behavior.
We’re in a market environment dominated by what Wall Street calls event risk. That’s a fancy way of saying prices are reacting to surprises instead of trends. Tariff chatter. AI breakthroughs. Policy rumors. One unexpected announcement can move entire sectors before most of us finish our morning coffee (spiking coffee prices are a story for another day).
So what’s the real deal? The indexes themselves look relatively calm. The S&P, Dow, and Nasdaq only slipped modestly last week. But underneath, we see wild swings in individual stocks. Some are soaring, while others are dropping double digits in days. A great analogy I heard was that it is like a storm tossing them (the stocks) in different directions.
AI is a perfect example. Investors are excited about its long-term potential—but terrified about who it might disrupt next. Software stocks got hit first. Then logistics. Then financial services. Markets are essentially playing musical chairs, trying to guess which industry loses its seat.
At the same time, the economic fundamentals appear to be on solid footing. Inflation has cooled more than expected. Job growth is still positive. Rate cuts are possible later this year. None of that sounds like panic conditions. Yet volatility has increased.
Uncertainty, not bad news, is what markets struggle with most.
Investors tend to think risk means losses. In reality, risk usually means unpredictability. And unpredictability is exactly what we have right now.
Historically, environments like this reward investors who do three things well:
- Ignore noise
- Stay diversified
- Think in years, not headlines
If the market feels chaotic lately, you’re not imagining it. But chaos doesn’t automatically mean danger. Sometimes it just means the market is recalibrating.
And recalibration, while uncomfortable, is often where opportunity lives. In markets like this, discipline matters more than prediction. As my dad recently said in his newsletter article, fasten your seatbelts! As always, we will be here watching closely and keeping our eye on the markets. Let us know if you have any questions or concerns. With that, enjoy the weekend and let’s keep the melting going!