The Prepared Investor (How to Prevent the Next Crisis from Affecting Your Financial Independence)

Why do some crises affect the stock market far more than others? What will happen to an individual’s financial security when the next major terrorist attack occurs? When faced with disaster, why do investment advisors keep telling clients to just be patient? Wall Street typically suggests that, when crisis hits, investors must put life on pause with the hope that someday, perhaps years later, portfolio values will return to normal. This standard “wait and see” approach involves sitting through chaos, confusion, and even long-term loss. The Prepared Investor offers an innovative and practical approach that reveals how the true story of investing through crisis is very different from the standard dogma that’s accepted today. Christopher Manske demonstrates how readers can protect and grow their net worth in the face of calamity using twenty specific action steps built on an understanding of how different crises affect society and the investment markets. Like Outliers showed a different way to look at success and Nine Lies About Work turned the establishment upside down on leadership and teams, Manske convincingly demonstrates that society’s reaction to true crisis is absolutely predictable. In making this pattern clear, Manske offers a compelling and instructive approach to maximizing your portfolio despite tomorrow’s uncertainty. From this vantage point, readers will see why the investing world barely reacted when a disease killed more people than all the deaths attributed to both World Wars, how a few National Guardsmen sank the entire stock market, how the secret Napoleon knew explains investors’ selling behavior, and why a simple statement from particular leaders can be just as much a crisis as an airplane flying into the World Trade Center. Investment concepts change with research and experience. Diversification, though accepted today, used to be a very controversial way to manage risk in a portfolio. Similarly, Wall Street did not always use a Risk Assessment Questionnaire to help investors select the proper investments. Manske challenges today’s dogma surrounding crisis investing and suggests the time has come to change the story because, during a real crisis, “wait and see” is horribly inadequate. Wall Street’s current approach leaves investors dependent on the promise that things will get better, but successful portfolio management in the face of major calamity is more proactive – and a lot more optimistic – than it seems on the surface. At its core, The Prepared Investor is about how training and preparation can help people to behave better than their instinctual reactions. By shining a light on how specific catalysts create certain patterns of behavior, Manske shows readers that if the crisis is new and threatening, the effect will be predictable and familiar. On the curious journey to answer the question, “How can investors protect and grow their net worth in the face of crisis?” readers will come to understand how foolish it is for Wall Street to approach all types of calamity with the same “just hold on” solution. Using well-researched case studies, Manske explains why academics cannot agree on the actual start of the Vietnam War, what the coronavirus and advancing artificial intelligence have in common, why the biggest danger to a portfolio during crisis is probably the owner’s own natural instincts, and why it’s important to get ready for tomorrow’s crisis right now. Pulitzer Prize winner Peggy Noonan wrote in The Wall Street Journal, "You can't see all the world's weapons and all its madness and not know that eventually we will face a terrible day or days... Maybe it will involve nuclear weapons...an attack on the grid, maybe bioterrorism. But it will be bad..." People know something’s coming as they listen to the news warn of cybersecurity issues and North Korea’s nuclear program. They read about extremists who take drastic steps to be prepared for anything from a dirty bomb to