How financial advisors plan to get investors ready for the post-pandemic market

Sun Group Wealth Partners, Financial Advisor, Winnie Sun, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss how investors need to change their mindset around the market as we head out of the pandemic and deal with inflation jitters.

Video Transcript

- It's certainly been a challenging and interesting year for investors. But as we continue to see the economy reopening and we start to look at something more like normal, how do investors need to be thinking about their long term plans? Joining us now to discuss is Winnie Sun. She's a financial advisor with Sun Group Wealth Partners.

So Winnie, let's just start with how your conversations with clients are today as you think about the next two or three years. A year ago, it was crisis mode, make sure everything's locked down. Try to get through this period. But there's starting to be some more visibility. And what are the kind of conversations you're having now?

WINNIE SUN: [? Miles, ?] you're so right. I think our clients are looking at their portfolios and wondering how to pivot for the next 6 months, 12 months, 18 months. And inflation continues to be on top of mind for everyone. They're concerned that things are going to get more expensive. They're going to the supermarket, and they're seeing prices of things that they normally buy start to creep up.

So that's concerning. And certainly what we're talking about now is, how do we get them to stay invested, look towards your long term financial goals, and obviously, keep up with, not only inflation, but also the importance of reaching those financial goals. So they're not keeping too much in cash. They're not keeping too much in fixed income if they have time on their hands. I think that's key.

- Winnie, to those folks who see this inflation print and they get worried about the returns in their portfolio, and if they think that maybe the one way they can beat it is by just going all in on meme stocks, going out there and becoming more of an active trader, going all in on a GameStop, an AMC. What would you tell them?

WINNIE SUN: Well, fortunately Brian, that is an area that we've had discussions on. And I think, overall, I think our clients are looking at this and thinking, well, that's not really for me. They're realizing that, you know, I think a client that works with a financial advisor typically does stay true to the plans that we put in place, at diversification, certain areas of strength that we feel, that long term will give them that value that not only will give them growth in some areas, will give them income.

So meme stocks, you know, although they're curious and they find them entertaining, I don't think they're really ready to jump in and put their hard-earned dollars into those stocks yet. But you know, it makes for a good conversation right now.

- It certainly does. And that's why we talk about it every day here on the show. Winnie, obviously, here at Yahoo Finance, we're focused on individual companies, stock movements of the day. But the kind of client you're working with often has a lot of their portfolio in real estate. And I'm curious what those conversations are like, because that market has a lot of interesting dynamics going on right now.

WINNIE SUN: It does, Miles. And it's so interesting. We're here in Southern California, and certainly, we are not shy when it comes to real estate. However, that being said, you know, I've talked to clients across the board. And many continue to agree that, wow, you know, we thought real estate was expensive maybe a year ago. Real estate is very, very expensive now.

And you know, you might say, well, perhaps I buy rental property or commercial property and mitigate some of these inflation risks with collecting income, right, getting rental income. But that's getting to be more difficult, not only here in a very hot real estate market, but across the country. So I think our clients are looking at saying, you know, what do we do right now?

And I read a really fun tweet from you, Miles, about, like, you know, fixed-income sort of, is that negative attitude. And a lot of our lifestyle feel, although we have a fixed income component, they're not ready to jump in so deep yet. They're still pretty optimistic.

- Well as you know, Winnie, when you have fixed income, all you can think about is what goes wrong. And that's not fun. You know, we want to think about what goes right. So that's why the stock guys tend to be a little bit more smiley as I try to be here. All right, Winnie Sun, financial advisor with Sun Group Wealth Partners. Winnie, thanks so much for taking some time to talk with us this morning.