Can Brexit Affect Your Retirement Plan?

While investors scrambled insecurely on Friday after Britain’s shocking vote to leave the EU, this could just be a normal and healthy reaction for the time being. It could in fact be an opportunity for profit.

According to Ric Edelman, who runs Edelman Financial Services, a firm that manages $16 billion for more than 30,000 clients, “This is a classic knee-jerk reaction from Wall Street traders. Our clients are focused on their long-term goals. There will be no sustained impact five years from now. They can ignore it, or if anything, capitalize.”

Edelman did confirm that investors should expect market volatility for a while but advised them with, “not change your long-term investment strategy.”

The votality could re-balance their clients’ portfolios and according to him, “This represents investment opportunity.”

Unfortunately, he says many investors will do exactly the opposite and dump stocks when they’re falling. “Nobody knows how low is low, and nobody knows what the market is going to do to. Trying to time the market is a fool’s bet, and that’s precisely what a lot of people try to do.”

“If you don’t have a long term strategy, if you’re not properly diversified, this is the time to get effective financial advice,” Edelman says. “Investors could act on impulse and do the very wrong thing at the very wrong time.”