When the headlines get loud

If your phone notifications have felt louder than usual lately, you’re not imagining it.

Calls for the U.S. to annex Greenland.¹ A military standoff with NATO allies.² The threat of a new trade war with Europe.³ A criminal investigation into the Federal Reserve chair.⁴ It’s the kind of headlines you’d expect from an action movie screenwriter hopped up on too much coffee.

And investors have noticed. Stocks plunged. Yields surged. Gold skyrocketed.⁵

It’s a lot to take in. But before getting into any details, I want to start with the most important point.

Nothing meaningful about your long-term financial life probably changed this week.

Your goals are likely the same. Your timeline is likely the same. The reasons you invest are likely the same.

What did change is how noisy the world feels.

Here’s the thing…

Human brains are excellent at spotting danger. They’re not great at separating “many surprising headlines at once” from “something that permanently alters the future.” When uncertainty clusters, our nervous system treats it like a fire alarm.

That reaction is normal. It’s ancient. It kept our ancestors alive.

It’s also not a great portfolio manager.

Markets react to stories in the short term. Fear. Relief. Speculation. Narratives that spread faster than facts. Over longer periods, markets care about slower, less dramatic things. Company profits. Interest rates. Inflation. Productivity. How much people spend and save.

Those forces move gradually. Headlines move by the minute.

This is why sharp market swings feel significant in the moment but often look small in hindsight. Big moves make for dramatic charts and urgent commentary. Over a multi-year plan, they usually become a footnote.

It’s like flying through turbulence.

When a plane hits rough air, everything feels wrong. The cabin shakes. Drinks spill. Your body tenses up. It can feel dangerous even when the aircraft itself is operating exactly as designed.

Turbulence is uncomfortable. It’s loud. It gets your attention.

It is not the same thing as the plane being in trouble.

Volatility works the same way in markets.

It isn’t a sign that something is broken. It’s the price investors pay for long-term growth.

If markets were calm all the time, they’d also offer much lower returns. You can’t separate the reward from the uncertainty any more than you can separate a smooth flight from the possibility of rough air.

The real risk during weeks like this isn’t what the market does next.

It’s what people do next.

When fear is high, people get tempted to do very human things. Sell to stop the discomfort. Sit on the sidelines waiting for clarity. Chase whatever just went up. Rewrite long-term plans based on short-term emotion.

Those decisions feel protective in the moment. Historically, however, they’re typically how long-term returns get damaged.

Your financial plan was built with weeks like this in mind.

Not because volatility is pleasant. Because it’s inevitable.

Every decade has its version of “this feels unprecedented.” The early 2000s had terror attacks. The late 2000s had a financial crisis. The 2020s opened with a pandemic and an inflation shock. Each period felt unstable while living through it. Markets kept compounding anyway, because progress is uneven but persistent.

The things that most influence your financial future are still firmly in your control. How much you save. How diversified you are. How much risk you take relative to your goals. How disciplined you remain when emotions run hot. How long you stay invested.

Those quiet decisions matter far more than any single week of headlines.

If you ever feel uneasy during periods like this, that’s human. You don’t need to suppress it. You just don’t need to let it drive.

Markets will always have moments of turbulence. That’s part of the journey.

The goal isn’t to eliminate every bump in the air. It’s to stay in your seat, trust the design of the plane, and keep moving toward where you actually want to go.

That’s how short-term noise becomes long-term progress.

Sources:

1. USA Today, 2026 [URL: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2026/01/13/us-greenland-trump-action-news/88145613007/]
2. CNBC, 2026 [URL: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/20/trump-greenland-europe-nato-denmark-troops.html]
3. BBC, 2026 [URL: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g5345ylk0o]
4. CNN, 2026 [URL: https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/11/business/federal-prosecutors-criminal-investigation-federal-reserve-chair-jerome-powell]
5. CNBC, 2026 [URL: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/19/stock-market-today-live-updates.html]