The last few weeks have been a rollercoaster ride as Trump’s policy decisions have given new meaning to uncertainty! The markets have not experienced this level of volatility since 9/11.

With tariffs on and then off again, no one is predicting anything, as honestly, no one has a clue. Added to the global chaos, we have our own crisis in the making with the possible breakdown of the GNU.

At a time like this, the best thing to do is to ignore all the noise and continue with your existing financial plan. Just sit on your hands and try to avoid the scary headlines.

It is also worth taking a longer-term view. Below is a table that Satrix created for me for an article I wrote for News24 on whether to invest your TFSA monthly or as a lump sum.

Their figures show that over ten years, investing a lump sum on 1 March each year was better than investing R3 000 every month. This does not mean you should wait until you have R36 000 to invest. It shows that the sooner you invest, the better. So, start investing even if your cash flow only allows a monthly contribution.

But more importantly, it shows that over the last ten years – which included the global Covid shutdown (remember how scary that was!) – you were better off investing in the market than sticking to cash.

Local market has recently outperformed

In hindsight, investing in the US market’s S&P 500 gave you the best return. But hindsight is a perfect science, and the last few weeks have shown that markets that have had a bull run for a long time and are overvalued are going to fall harder. If you compare one-year figures up to 28 February, our local market has outperformed.

If you look at the returns for 2025 up until Wednesday of this week, the JSE is up slightly, while the S&P 500 is down over 15%.

Don’t sit in cash

The moral of the story is that if you are investing for more than five years, don’t sit in cash.  Investors are rewarded for taking risks.

Over a period of ten or 20 years, you can be guaranteed that there will be multiple market crashes for different reasons – many of which we cannot predict: credit crisis, COVID-19, and trade wars. This is the nature of the world; it is inherently uncertain over the shorter term, but over time, companies still grow and make profits.

Be careful of chasing returns. Many investors were attracted to the high returns of the S&P 500 and ran the risk of investing at the peak. Over time you want to be diversified. Something like the MSCI World Index exposes you to wider range of markets, countries and currencies.

Invest in equities but have liquidity. If you are investing in markets, you don’t want to be in a position where you are forced to sell some shares in order to cover an emergency, because you never know when that market crash will happen.

The best way to protect your long-term investments is to have an emergency fund – ideally equivalent to at least three months of your living expenses.

The best advice for now is to leave your investments alone and to not panic. This will take time to play out.