Like many teenage girls, I had my high school bedroom walls covered in posters. Actor Rob Lowe took center stage, with a bit of Matt Dillon sprinkled in. (Ladies of the ’80s… any of you relate?)
Mixed in with the heartthrobs were glossy posters of red sports cars. Ferrari. Lamborghini. Later, in college, an Acura NSX.
Looking back, it’s strange. I’ve never been much of a car person — especially not sports cars. I don’t see well out of them. They’re low to the ground. I scrape rims, bump curbs, and the quick handling leaves me feeling slightly queasy.
So why the fascination?
I think those cars represented success. Flashy. Fast. The kind of thing people ‘oohed’ and ‘ahhed’ over.
Defining success by external standards is dangerous business. Thankfully, I outgrew that particular distortion — though I’m sure plenty of others remain.
As an adult, I gravitate toward practical, balanced cars. What I think of as the all-weather vehicle. I don’t need to go 200 mph down the autobahn. But I do want traction in heavy rain. I don’t care about making a statement at the valet. I care about glancing in the rearview mirror and seeing my dog’s smiling face as we head to his favorite place on earth — the park.
That preference for balance turns out to matter far beyond cars. It’s also the way I believe we should approach retirement planning and investing.
Like an all-weather vehicle, an all-weather investment approach carries you safely through the storm. Share on X
In hindsight, those sports car dreams and investing have something in common. Sometimes, it’s hard not to hop into the shiny red sports car and drive away.
In investing, a shiny investment (like the shiny red sports car) promises speed and excitement. It may not be as reliable, but for a brief moment, it makes us feel brilliant. Powerful. Maybe even a little invincible. In touch with our inner James Bond. And who doesn’t want to feel like a secret service spy just once in their lifetime?
Often, it shows up as a single stock. Sometimes it’s a real estate deal. Or a business venture. It feels adventurous. Sophisticated. Like we’re seeing something others don’t.
In the late 1990s, tech stocks were the shiny red sports car.
The firm I worked for at the time offered a Science and Technology Fund that rose 99% in twelve months. One day, a middle-aged couple came in and asked me to move their entire portfolio into it.
Their portfolio had been built for durability:
blue-chip stock funds,
international exposure,
a few bond funds,
and a small allocation to the Science and Tech Fund.
They had spent a year watching the tech fund soar, while everything else stood still.
I balked at their request. I explained the logic of balance. Sure, in perfect weather, the shiny red sports car looked great. But the weather wouldn’t always be so accommodating.
My logic sounded silly to them – like a mom insisting you put on your helmet to ride your bike down the street.
They insisted on the change. I acquiesced on one condition: they sign a disclosure acknowledging that this was against my recommendation. They signed without hesitation.
I left that firm before the dot-com crash and the miserable weather that followed. I’ve often wondered what happened to that couple. The allure of speed was too strong.
Today, I see that allure creep in when retirees keep a “play” account. They go all in on a few stocks and attribute their success to their stock-picking prowess.
You can go all in with a play account. But a professional financial advisor can get sued if they do the same thing with your entire life savings. That should give you pause. Risk and return are sides of the same coin. But each time you flip, if it’s several years of heads, it is all too easy to forget that the coin even has another side.
Not everyone is tempted by flashy sports cars. Sometimes the pull is subtler.
We start to think maybe a small upgrade will help. Something just a little faster. A little more responsive. Even if it doesn’t handle storms quite as well.
I watched this at the end of 2024 when a long-time client, whose retirement plan and portfolio were in solid shape, left because they felt they should be earning higher returns.
While they held a multi-asset class portfolio that included international, small-cap, and fixed-income assets, they compared everything to the S&P 500 Index. And for several years, many of their funds lagged behind the S&P. They told us they felt our approach was too conservative and that they were moving to someone who would invest more aggressively.
Recently, they reached out to ask for the cost basis on three funds we had held for years that their new advisor had sold. Those funds were part of an all-weather structure and represented sectors that prior market conditions hadn’t favored.
We sent over the information.
My curiosity got the better of me, so I checked how those funds had performed over the past year. One finished 2025 up over 47%. The S&P 500 also had a good year, up just over 17%.
Market leadership rotates.
What looks unnecessary or inefficient during one stretch often becomes essential, or the top performer in the next leg. And retirement is a long journey. Portfolios – and all retirement decisions – should be designed around a full weather cycle. Not just today’s season.
In a 2022 podcast, How to Build an All-Weather Retirement Plan, Christine Benz of Morningstar and I discussed the many kinds of weather retirees must plan for: inflation, sequence-of-returns risk, lumpy spending, and unexpected expenses, just to name a few.
To navigate those conditions, you need an all-weather vehicle.
Not the fastest. Not the flashiest. But something built for the terrain, the distance, and the journey you actually want to take. A practical car. A reliable one.
An all-weather vehicle won’t shine in every environment. It won’t accelerate from zero to sixty in four seconds. You may spend long stretches watching other vehicles pass you by.
But it will get you where you need to go.
And if you stick with it long enough, you’ll likely pass some of those other drivers later — stranded on the side of the road when the snowstorm hits.
Over a full market cycle, durability has a way of showing up when it matters most.
Some people are naturals at building and maintaining an all-weather portfolio. They rebalance. They diversify. They follow a process. They have discipline and aren’t easily swayed by the latest headlines. They walk right past the shiny red sports car without a second glance. They are happy making steady progress and don’t get caught up in unreasonable comparisons.
If that’s you, keep going. It’s impressive.
But many people aren’t wired that way. Financial decisions can feel overwhelming—especially as retirement approaches and the stakes feel higher. Those people may need professional guidance.
The most important step is knowing yourself. And knowing enough to recognize good advice.
Whether you manage things on your own or prefer to work with a trusted guide, choose the all-weather vehicle – or someone who uses that approach.
There will always be someone trying to sell you the shiny red sports car. Don’t get in.
Retirement isn’t about getting to mile ten first.
It’s about enjoying the journey.
And avoiding crashing in the snow.
Your Turn: Have you ever been tempted by a shiny investment? What happened? Have you increased reliance on an all-weather approach as a result of the experience? Let’s chat…
