A self-made millionaire shares 2 mistakes to avoid amid market chaos and the one strategy change he's made
Menelik Puryear
- Last week featured shocking stock-market volatility in response to Trump's trade war.
- Ramit Sethi advises against panic selling and over-optimizing investments.
- Sethi recommends building a 12-month emergency fund amid market uncertainty.
Global markets have swung wildly due to uncertainty surrounding President Donald Trump's tariffs.
"If anything, the chaos in the market should wake you up to two things," Ramit Sethi, personal finance author and the host of Netflix's "How to Get Rich," told Business Insider.
"Number one, you better get educated about your money. If it is the thing that's keeping you up at night and you're worrying, you better read a book about money and learn how it works. Learn what asset allocation is. Learn how much you need to survive in retirement."
Secondly, "you should be extremely angry at the politics of what is going on," he said. "I don't mind that there are downturns in the market. That's normal. But what is happening right now with slapping tariffs on the whole world, there's no economic justification."
Sethi shared two mistakes to avoid amid market chaos and the single change he's made to his own personal finances.
1. Don't panic sell
"Slow down and don't panic," said Sethi. "Times like this can cost investors millions of dollars because of rash decisions they make. The most important thing you can do is avoid selling your investments out of panic."
Investors should stay the course, even those approaching retirement, he said: "If you are close to retirement, ideally, you would have already adjusted your asset allocation to be more conservative."
To avoid making any knee-jerk decisions, don't even look at your investment accounts, said Sethi, who doesn't believe in having banking or investment apps on your phone.
"It's the same as walking into a casino after 2 o'clock in the morning: Nothing good is coming from that and nothing good is coming from you logging onto Vanguard on your phone," he said.
2. Don't over-optimize
Sethi warns against investing more than you normally would in the market right now.
"A lot of folks right now are saying, 'Hey, what if I just invest extra because the market's down?' That sounds really smart, but that's really just market timing," he said. "That's the same as saying, 'Why don't I sell because the market's down?' It's just that this time you're a buyer instead of a seller."
His advice is to use any extra money to build a 12-month emergency fund. If you already have 12 months' worth of expenses saved, have money to play with, and want to invest more, go for it — just keep in mind that we don't know what the market is going to do tomorrow, he said.
A more sustainable and savvy strategy is to set up automatic contributions to your investment accounts. That way, you're investing consistently, regardless of what's going on in the market.
The one change he's made with his own money
Sethi hasn't touched his investments since the President's tariff announcements.
"The only thing I've done is to start to build up an even larger savings account," he said. "Other than that, I have made no other changes, nor would I. You should not be adjusting your investments on a daily basis."
Having 12 months' worth of expenses saved is "a lot," he said, but there's also a lot of uncertainty. "When companies see uncertainty, they retrench; when they retrench, they lay people off."
If you have extra money, "you would probably be better served in the short term putting that money in a savings account and building up a sizable war chest."