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My latest MoneySense Retired Money column looks at the Iran conflict that erupted suddenly late in February: you can find the full column here: How Retirees should respond to the Iran Crisis.
On Tuesday, the day after Trump TACO’d over his threat to attack Iran’s oil infrastructure (a 5-day reprieve that calmed stock markets at least for the week ending March 27th) Findependence Hub ran a blog that collected input from 14 financial advisors and business owners based largely in the United States. Those sources were collected via a partnership with long-time contributor Featured.com, which works with Linked In to select input. You can find the resulting column here: Financial Experts and Business Owners on what if any moves Retirees should consider if Iran War drags on.
You can get the gist of the messages those experts sent by quickly scrolling down through an admittedly long blog and reading the subheadings highlighted in Blue in the original post. Below I append my favourites, some of which I flagged on social media. If you find the headline summaries intriguing, you’ll find the accompanying observations useful, if not actionable:
Avoid Knee-jerk Liquidation
This is more of a rebalance-and-defend moment than a reason to overhaul the portfolio
Put Capital Preservation over Aggressive Growth
Seek Robust diversification across asset classes and sectors
Rebalance toward defense, yes. Blow up your entire strategy? No.
Make sure existing Allocation is suitably Defensive and Liquid
Don’t over-rotate into a single ‘safe’ bet that can whipsaw when the narrative changes
Remain diversified enough to absorb uncertainty
Reduce volatile individual Growth Names but maintain Diversified Index Funds
Move from Sector Rotation to Structural Resilience
Canadian perspective, with CUSMA renewal looming
The MoneySense column focuses more on the Canadian situation, with input from Toronto-based advisors like John De Goey, Matthew Ardrey and Steve Lowrie, all of which should be familiar to readers of this site and the Retired Money column.
See also a recent blog on Stagflation penned by Dale Roberts of the Retirement Club and cutthecrap investing. Among his many suggestions, the most valuable may be his emphasis on maintaining an “All-Weather Portfolio” catering to all four possible economic quadrants: Inflationary Growth, Disinflationary Growth, Stagflation and Deflation/Recession.
Certified Financial Planner John de Goey, portfolio manager with Toronto-based Designed Securities, was increasingly bearish well before the Iran war. On top of global market chaos, he points out that Canada also has to deal with the CUSMA negotiations and its possible abrogation this summer. “Starting with the ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs and continuing into 2026, trade alliances have splintered, and new ones need to be built at lightning speed to make up the shortfall. Times will be harder.”
De Goey suggests retirees and near retirees can consider reducing exposure to traditional financial assets (especially U.S. stocks and bonds); take a more defensive approach to strategic asset allocation; consider moving to more pension-styled approaches to portfolio construction; and use more inflation-friendly assets (gold, materials, infrastructure: perhaps 10% in each.).
Duration of Iran conflict is the key unknown
The unanswerable question is how long the Iran conflict may drag on, says Matthew Ardrey, Senior Financial Planner with Toronto-based TriDelta Private Wealth. “If it is just a few weeks or a couple of months, things could right themselves with little long-term effects to the economy. If it starts to drag on for months, or even worse longer, then the impact will be felt in the broader economy.”
Those still in the Accumulation phase may view Iran pullbacks as proverbial buying opportunities. If so, Ardrey suggests adding to large solid companies “designed to weather the storm. The lower the markets go, the better the opportunity for you to buy and make stronger returns in the long-term.”
The situation is trickier for older investors living off assets. “My hope is they don’t need to be making large changes to their asset allocation or underlying investments because their portfolio was set up correctly in the first place. If not, there is still time to make changes,” Ardrey says.
CFA Steve Lowrie, of Toronto-based Lowrie Financial, quotes Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: “Every battle is won before it is fought.” Lowrie observes that you do not prepare for a market crisis during a crisis; you prepare years in advance: “It is better to plan ahead than to react to the crisis du jour.” The real mistake investors make is assuming they can predict stagflation or the next bear market, he adds: “No one can, and we usually only know in hindsight whether this actually happened.”
Lowrie’s main recommendation is to have a lifestyle reserve or cash buffer: Have “at least three to four years of spending needs set aside in cash and short-term, high-quality bonds. With that reserve in place, you have safer assets to draw on for lifestyle needs and are not forced to sell equities when markets are down, which is often where the real damage occurs.”
Retirees need to be more cautious than those still accumulating wealth
One point these advisors make is that investors have enjoyed significant market gains in the past few years and there’s nothing wrong with those in the Retirement Risk Zone taking some of those gains and rebalancing into a more cautious defensive mix, as many of the subheadings highlighted above remind us.
Recall my previous Retired Money column last column at MoneySense on Vanguard’s VRIF. At time of writing, that ETF aimed at retirees had close to 70% fixed income: in line with the rule of thumb that Cash/Bond exposure should equal one’s age.
As I conclude in the latest MoneySense column, that strikes me as on the cautious side but with the Iran situation and a volatile U.S. commander-in-chief who can torpedo markets with a single social media post, it also seems prudent for Retirees who depend on their portfolios for their income.
