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Equity Exposure: A Necessity
By Diane E. Alter
A
notable number of investors
still remain skittish regarding
risk exposure to equities.
Despite some record highs in 2013,
the stock market remains volatile –
as shown by a Standard & Poor’s 500
Index decline in the middle of this
past February, down slightly more
than six percent from its January
2014 peak.
“These market fluctuations are
worth watching,” says Stacy Bush, president of Bush Wealth
Management, LLC, based in Valdosta, Georgia. But they aren’t
cause for panic or hesitancy to remain in or, especially,
to get back in the market. “This is particularly the case if a
retirement income that even slightly resembles one’s working
days income is a goal,” Bush noted.
“So many people do not want exposure to equities today,”
Bush said. This hesitancy is based on the great losses
sustained during the 2008 and 2009 Great Recession, when
average stocks fell nearly 36 percent during the first year
alone. “But to grow accumulated wealth to mitigate inflation,
taxes and longevity, investors have to have exposure to
equities in their portfolios for the money to last long enough
to fund what are now increasingly longer retirements.”
He knows all too well the experience of being without
cash flow. Growing up on a peanut farm in Georgia, Bush
watched helplessly as his parents were forced into bankruptcy
in 1986, after struggling for several years to overcome
the effects of the harsh droughts in 1977 and 1979.
That experience set him on a career path in financial services
based on a desire to help other families avoid going through
the same thing. After a few years working as a missionary
in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, he returned home
to start his own firm. Even then, things weren’t too flush.
He recalls – with perhaps a bit of fondness he doesn’t wish
to repeat – the times his wife made him peanut butter and
jelly sandwiches while they lunched in the parking lot of a
grocery store, because he was working out of his vehicle and
they couldn’t afford to eat at a restaurant.
“It was challenging at first,” he recalls. “Extremely
gloomy.”
Persistence paid off, and since then Bush has built a
steady business providing financial advice to agricultural
enterprises, widowed and divorced women and educators.
These social groups are his primary focus as they are often
under-served by other financial advisors.
He is hopeful that the current national discussion regarding
the establishment of a uniform fiduciary standard isn’t
simply just talk.
“I certainly hope so,” he said in regard to whether regulations
governing all types of financial advisors under one
standard may be enacted. “It baffles my mind that someone
would potentially not act in the client’s best interest. Thus
the concept of a fiduciary standard is very important.”
www.bushwealthmanagement.com