Marie, a Global Predictions user in her early 30s, recently realized that news reporting had been a primary driver of her investment decisions; not necessarily what she invested in, but when she made her transactions. “I was haphazardly responding to finance articles that I’d come across on Google news, or in the weekend newspaper. I had done my research on what stocks and ETFs I wanted in my portfolio, but market volatility had convinced me that there was a “right” time to transact, and I kept delaying decision making.”  

Wanting to time the market is a trap many investors fall into. By monitoring the economy via Global Predictions, Marie was able to refocus on what she was investing in and look at things like her overall exposure by sector, her vulnerability to the performance of the US market, and other important factors that will have more impact on her investment performance over time than execution price. 

With just over $125k in investments, Marie’s portfolio is a mix of self-selected investments (ETFs, stocks, some commodities) and cash she’s holding in anticipation of buying a home. Before Marie started using Global Predictions, she was managing her investments based on information bias to what she read. Rather than confirming a thesis with data, she was responding to reporting, or narratives that were told about past performance versus future prospects. Past performance does not guarantee future results, and she realized there had to be a better way to push past the front page of her financial news sources and begin to understand the economic relationships she was seeing reflected in her portfolio of stocks, ETFs and commodities. 

Using the Global Predictions dashboard, Marie was able to import her investments for accounts at different brokerages to gain visibility into her overall portfolio performance. This gave her a single dashboard to view all of her investments together and begin to see the bigger picture. While each account individually made sense, seeing everything together gave a new perspective. “I don’t think I realized how psychological investing was. I was monitoring things based on my perception of ‘good,’” she said. “With everything together, it became clearer that I’d over exposed myself in some areas, particularly when I’d bought a position in stock that was also a major holding within another ETF.”

Because it’s likely Marie will work for another 25 years, she holds a majority of equities and other assets with more risk and therefore upside potential in the long term. However, Marie knows that she wants to buy a house within the next two years, and will be pulling money from the market to do so. Liquidity and allocation go hand in hand for young investors who are still in the first half of their working lives. Marie’s need for liquidity is a major factor in deciding how she allocates assets. “Before Global Predictions, I knew I had the money saved and invested, but didn’t realize the impact of portfolio allocation on my risk. By making a few of the suggested changes I was able to diversify my portfolio, and ensure that I don’t lose a meaningful part of my down payment if the market conditions change.” For Marie, Global Predictions suggestions included moving her cash holdings into a higher interest product, dropping a low-performing mutual fund, diversifying with gold, and reducing the overlap of her ETF / stock holdings. 

Marie was able to do research to support her asset reallocation within Global Predictions, deciding what in her portfolio to sell, and then what to buy to give her the security she wants before buying a home. “At first I was very overwhelmed by the idea of doing my own research. Global Predictions made it so easy to follow my instincts and dig into the data to see what types of investments, mainly ETFs in my case, give me the balance I want in anticipation of a liquidity event.”

Financial research doesn’t have to feel complicated. Global Predictions equips you with the best data to make your financial decisions in an easy-to-navigate online interface.