{"id":327518,"date":"2026-03-04T00:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T00:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/327518\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T00:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T00:30:12","slug":"worried-about-geopolitical-risk-and-your-retirement-portfolio-theres-a-bigger-issue-at-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/327518\/","title":{"rendered":"Worried about geopolitical risk and your retirement portfolio? There\u2019s a bigger issue at play\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Financial data displayed at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday. Planners say that downturns are part of investing.Seth Wenig\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Watching your portfolio swing in response to geopolitical turmoil is never easy, especially if you are in or near retirement.<\/p>\n

More than half of advisers say geopolitical risk is their clients\u2019 top concern, according to a recent Fidelity survey. But financial planners say moments such as this are exactly what retirement plans<\/a> are meant to withstand.<\/p>\n

Following U.S. and Israeli military strikes on Iran on Saturday, including the killing of Iran\u2019s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Tehran launched retaliatory missile and drone attacks across the Gulf region, home to several U.S. military bases. North American markets fell on Tuesday amid sector-wide losses, joining a larger global market decline.<\/p>\n

In the Fidelity survey, 59 per cent of advisers said geopolitics is the macroeconomic factor they expect will most affect portfolios this year, followed by market volatility and inflation. Between 2,500 and 3,100 advisers were polled on Jan. 28 during Fidelity\u2019s Toronto Vision hybrid event. <\/p>\n

From inflation to mortgages, six ways the Iran war could affect your wallet<\/a><\/p>\n

Still, planners say that downturns are part of investing. \u201cYou should assume they\u2019re going to happen,\u201d said Adam Chapman, a certified financial planner and founder of YESMoney in London, Ont.<\/p>\n

That assumption should already be built into a retirement plan, Mr. Chapman said. Otherwise, market declines can trigger panic and reactionary decisions that damage long-term outcomes.<\/p>\n

The urge to panic is often greatest for new retirees. \u201cSitting on your hands gets a lot harder when you retire, even when you have a good plan in place,\u201d Mr. Chapman said.<\/p>\n

After decades of accumulating savings, retirees begin drawing from their nest egg instead of adding to it. Watching investments fall while withdrawals continue can feel destabilizing and introduce what planners call \u201csequence of returns risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

If markets decline in the first few years of retirement while withdrawals are underway, losses can compound more severely than if the same downturn occurred later.<\/p>\n

Colin White, a certified financial planner and chief executive of Verecan Capital Management in Halifax, said no one can plan for every geopolitical outcome. But periods like this offer a useful test, of both a retirement strategy and the adviser behind it.<\/p>\n

If you feel you need to change your portfolio because of a war, \u201cyou\u2019ve got a bad portfolio,\u201d Mr. White said. \u201cYour portfolio needs to be built assuming these things are going to happen, not anticipating when they\u2019re going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some advisers use Monte Carlo simulations, a test that models how a retirement plan might perform across thousands of market scenarios.<\/p>\n

But Mr. Chapman cautions that while these exercises can be helpful, they can also create unnecessary anxiety and may not perfectly reflect real-world conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re looking for a stress test to help us feel better, it\u2019s probably because something else is missing,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can go in, and stress test it all you want, but if it comes back as anything under 100 per cent, you\u2019re probably going to feel like garbage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Mr. Chapman recommends that clients ask their advisers to walk through their full financial plan, including short- and long-term goals, to ensure they remain on track. <\/p>\n

Canadians may pay more for gas because of Iran war, but oil glut could curb price hikes<\/a><\/p>\n

Victoria-based Chris Raper, a portfolio manager at Aspira Wealth of Raymond James Ltd., said times of geopolitical tension are good to assess the geographic diversity of your portfolio.<\/p>\n

For example, many Canadians are more exposed to U.S. markets than they realize, Mr. Raper said. That is in part owing to the success that U.S. stocks have had in recent years.<\/p>\n

In 2010, U.S. stocks made up 48 per cent of the MSCI World stock market index. Now, that share has grown to around 72 per cent.<\/p>\n

Mr. Raper said panic often arises when retirees do not have enough cash set aside to cover expenses. In a sound retirement plan, clients should keep one to three years\u2019 worth of spending in a high-interest savings account, so they are not forced to sell investments during a downturn.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never want to be in a position where I\u2019ve got to sell stocks in a down market to fund your cash-flow needs,\u201d Mr. Raper said. \u201cEquity markets tend to recover within three years, even the most severe ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up now for the second season of Trade Off<\/a>, the Globe and Mail\u2019s free, online stock-picking contest.<\/a> Demonstrate your market mastery and compete for a $5,000 grand prize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Financial data displayed at the New York Stock Exchange on Monday. Planners say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[72,176,61,60,174,175,4925],"class_list":["post-327518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-r-fp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}