Investing amid uncertainty: diversify and stay calm

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With heightened geopolitical uncertainty on a multitude of levels, from tariffs to the crisis in the Middle East, how should individual investors be managing liquidity, risk strategies and diversification of holdings today?

Melissa Talarico, CRPC, financial advisor, Brighton Securities, says the first step is keeping emotions like love, hate and impulsiveness out of your financial planning and investing decisions.

Instead, she recommends allowing goals and risk tolerance to guide your investment choices and focusing on both your personal and long-term goals with the support of a trusted financial advisor.

“This is an emotional time and it’s hard to watch the news and see what’s going on and not want to react,” Talarico said. “But this is where working with an advisor can be really helpful in keeping emotions out of it and keeping your long-term goals in mind.”

It’s a great time to prioritize diversification in all manners and build a portfolio that can withstand a variety of climates, Talarico said.

She recommends choosing companies with a global footprint (for example, Meta); investing in a broad range of industries; investing in defensive stocks (which include consumer staples and healthcare) and investing in companies less affected by geopolitics, like those focused on technology.

“Also, diversification in asset classes is important,” Talarico said. “So, investing in a variety of stocks, bonds, commodities, and even looking at alternative investments to add to your portfolio, such as real estate or even real estate investment trusts, gold, or other precious metals.”

She also stresses that working with a financial advisor who can provide perspective and help develop a plan to meet your risk tolerance and exceed your personal goals is key.

“Rather than timing the market, it’s time in the market,” Talarico said. “So, if you keep your outlook long term, keep your goals in mind, keep investing based on what your plan looks like and with proper diversification, you can really ride this out and continue to exceed your goals.”

When it comes to liquidity in today’s economic and geopolitical environment, Christopher Petrosino, CFA, head of investments, wealth management at Manning & Napier, says his advice remains the same; it’s all about making sure to match your investment allocations to when you’re going to need to spend on a major expenditure.

“That advice really hasn’t changed and holds true regardless of the environment, because even when things are calm, you never know what could happen, so that’s evergreen advice,” Petrosino said. “We’re not in this environment advocating folks do anything other than match liquidity needs to when they actually plan to spend the money.”

Thinking about risk in the environment we’re in today, Petrosino says that even with geopolitical strife, stocks are pretty close to all-time highs, making it a great opportunity for investors to look across their portfolios and to ensure asset allocations are where they should be for their particular point in life.

“After a period of time where stocks are growing at double digits year on year, they could become an outsized portion of folks portfolios and if we look at some of the national data, household ownership of equities as a percent of their financial assets is at all-time highs,” said Petrosino, who adds this is an opportune time to reassess your portfolio to see if you may need to rebalance where you are.

The summer in particular is an excellent time to check-in with your financial advisor with any questions, concerns or other thoughts because it tends to be a quieter season and with the signing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last month, advisors now have more clarity and certainty around tax policy and how it will impact each client’s unique situation, Petrosino said.

Robert F. Pickels, CFA, chief investment officer, Whitney & Company, says there are certain topics that come up over the years that can be worrisome to some investors and that this year he’s seen that happen with tariffs and the tariff policy.

“It has been scary to people and justifiably so because we haven’t really been in an economic regime where tariffs were a prominent feature in a hundred years,” he said. “You really have to go back to the 1920s when we were using tariffs aggressively as part of our trade policy.”

Pickels explains that one of the roles of a financial advisor is to remind investors that even though policies change and markets go up and down in the short run, they tend to go up over the long term and to stay the course and keep emotions like fear out of the decision-making process.

“We invest in companies that tend to have very strong businesses and very good balance sheets,” he said. “These are companies that are going to survive no matter what happens. Our philosophy is just: buy great companies, hold them for the long term, and try not to get into the emotion of the short term.”

In addition to having a long-term view and not getting swept up in the volatility of things like tariffs and geopolitical issues, Pickels emphasizes the importance of diversification and an investment approach individualized to one’s goals and risk tolerance.

“We use bonds for stability and income; we use stocks for growth, and we use cash for liquidity and the mix of those assets that we use depends on the risk tolerance and the goals of the client,” he said.

Caurie Putnam is a Rochester-area freelance writer.