Advisors give here-we-go-again shrug to potential government shutdown
Investment advisors are shrugging off a potential government shutdown this weekend.
“We’ve been through this song and dance before,” said Noah Damsky, co-founder of Marina Wealth Advisors. “It feels like déjà vu. This is what they do every time.”
Lawmakers in Washington are once again at loggerheads over the federal budget. If a funding agreement — or a stopgap solution — can’t be reached by the end of the day Saturday, the government will close its doors for the 22nd time since 1976.
Many federal functions, including most activity at the Securities and Exchange Commission, would cease while members of Congress figure out a way ahead on government spending.
Advisors were sanguine about a potential default on the federal debt earlier this year, and they’re similarly calm about the possibility of a shuttered government.
Sean Rawlings, founder of Wealthbound Advisors, is telling worried clients to relax when they call him after seeing news about the looming shutdown.
“Our job as advisors is to reset expectations,” Rawlings said. “Not everything we see or hear in the news is as doomsday as it may seem. It’s our job to be a financial therapist sometimes.”
He reassures clients that Social Security payments will continue. He doesn’t plan to adjust any portfolios because “we only invest with long-term time frames in mind.”
It’s not clear how financial markets may react to another political stalemate in Washington.
Even if there’s a downturn, Damsky expects it will be brief.
“It could lead to some volatility,” he said. “But it will course-correct pretty quickly.”
A shutdown would jolt the SEC. The agency would furlough the vast majority of its staff, with only about 437 of 4,600 employees remaining on the job to “protect life or
Read more on investmentnews.com
