A familiar expression that we often refer to at Bartlett is “time in the market is more important than market timing.” During our Winter Strategy Update, we emphasized how this saying held true, as the market remained strong in terms of performance, despite ongoing volatility. By relying on fundamentals over predictions, we’re able to act intentionally and keep both our team and our clients grounded as conditions shift.

Maintaining Proper Perspective

In our firm’s 125 years, we’ve seen time and time again the dangers of trying to time the market. While 2025 proved to be a great year for the stock market, you may recall that the S&P 500 was at one point down 19%, nearly missing the bear market threshold. The market of 2025 speaks to the value of maintaining a disciplined, long-term approach when investing, letting history and fundamentals serve as a guide to our modern-day approach to portfolio construction.

As we look at our present-day market conditions, it can be tempting to get complacent amid a bull market buoyed by strong earnings, AI enthusiasm, and economic resilience. In today’s environment, there is still so much that is unknown, whether it’s tariff negotiations, interest rate trajectories, inflation trends, the geopolitical landscape, etc. It’s important to remain focused on the long-term outcomes rather than overreacting to the short-term, which continues to be a grounding principle in our approach to serving clients and creating the proper safeguards to navigate periods of uncertainty.

The Role of Diversification

One of those safeguards to navigating and preparing for unpredictable market cycles is diversification. In our Winter Strategy Update, we highlighted the case for international stocks as a recent example to showcase this principle in action.

As illustrated in the visual below, international markets had quite a strong year. After experiencing a decline in earnings during 2024, 2025 signaled a shift in momentum represented by the green data points below. Valuation, shown in gray, reflected growing optimism as many European nations increased spending amid fluctuation in the global economic landscape.

International stocks benefited from a favorable mix of factors in terms of expectations, fundamentals, and the weakening U.S. dollar. The chart below highlights the relationship between international outperformance vs. U.S. outperformance (represented in blue) during periods when the dollar is showing signs of weakening (represented in gray).

While it is difficult to predict how long these cycles will last, this example serves as a powerful reminder of the value of diversification. No single market leads forever, and a strategy that encompasses many opportunities, rather than zeroing in on one, proves to be beneficial in a world filled with unpredictability.

Conclusion

As markets ebb and flow, our approach remains the same. At Bartlett, we focus on the long-term and cut through the noise to build an all-weather portfolio designed to withstand the unpredictable pitfalls. We invite you to watch the recording below to hear more from our team.

DISCLOSURE:

This material provided by Bartlett Wealth Management (“Bartlett”) is for informational purposes only and is not intended to serve as a substitute for personalized investment advice or as a recommendation or solicitation of any particular security, strategy or investment product. Nothing in these materials is intended to serve as personalized tax and/or investment advice since the availability and effectiveness of any strategy is dependent upon your individual facts and circumstances. Opinions expressed by Bartlett are based on economic or market conditions at the time this material was written; actual economic or market events may turn out differently than anticipated. Facts presented have been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Bartlett, however, cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of such information, and certain information presented here may have been condensed or summarized from its original source.