The following is a guest post from FS sponsor, FarmTogether, a leading farm investing platform. Farmland investing is one way to reduce volatility in your portfolio and generate long-term passive income. Let’s look more into investing in 2021.

2020 has been a turbulent year for investors to say the least. On February 19, 2020, the S&P 500 closed at a record high. The following day it began a steep descent, eventually bottoming out on March 23rd, as the COVID-19 pandemic began paralyzing the global economy. This decline officially ended the longest bull market on record.

Despite a strong recovery in the public markets since March 2020, the US economy is still struggling. With rising COVID-19 cases and uncertainty surrounding the outcome of the presidential election in November, investors have become more hesitant about taking risks.

It is more important than ever for investors to have a clear strategy for managing their portfolios as we enter 2021. Let’s first go over stock market volatility and valuations. Then we’ll discuss three common investing strategies for managing uncertainty in 2021.

On October 2, 2019, Charles Schwab announced that it would no longer charge any trading fees. I remember my father using Charles Schwab in the 1990s and being charged $50 a trade. This article will discuss how online brokerages make money charging zero trading fees.

Immediately after the announcement, Charles Schwab stock dropped about 9%, while firms like TD Ameritrade and E-Trade dropped by even greater percentages. Clearly, investors in these names were not happy that these companies would be losing a significant portion of their revenue.

But when fees are cut, consumers generally win, if the firms can stay in business. Thus, the question is how will online brokerages make up for this lost revenue? Another question is what should investors on the platform do?

The following is a sponsored post from FarmTogether on alternative investments. FarmTogether is a leading farmland investing platform to help you diversify your portfolio. I currently have about 10% of my net worth in alternative investments such as private equity, venture debt, venture capital, and real estate crowdfunding. My goal is to bring my allocation up to about 15% over the next three years.

Conventional investments are the bedrock of just about any financial portfolio. However, those who are seeking higher yields on their investments may be dissatisfied by merely keeping pace with the market by way of a mix of stocks, bonds, and cash. For potentially higher real returns, consider alternative investments.

The world of alternative investments is broad: some investments are riskier than others, and some more popular than other options. Understanding the unique differences of each alternative investment can help ensure you know exactly what your options are, and how to develop a diversified portfolio that’s right for you.

Without proper financial benchmarks, you don’t know whether you are getting ahead, staying in place, or getting left behind. Therefore, it’s important to choose at least one financial benchmark on your journey to riches.

There is one consistent observation I’ve noticed in my journey towards financial freedom. Rich people make things more expensive for the rest of us. Given the supply of desirable necessities such as homes, schools, food, and even water is finite, the rich bid up prices far beyond what the middle class can afford.

Let us take a look at the historical stock market performance under a Democratic or a Republican President.

Before finding out the answer, I’d like you to guess under what party do you think the S&P 500 has performed the best? From there, we can compare the reality with your beliefs.

After all, one of the keys to being a good stock investor is to remove as much bias from your investing process as possible. It is suboptimal to invest on emotion.

For example, I know several people who decided to sell a majority of their stock holdings in 2016 once Donald Trump won the election. They hated Donald Trump. As a result, they missed out on over 50% in S&P 500 gains.

If you are an investor, it’s important to practice taking profits to pay for a better life. If you never utilize your gains and die with too much money, you have completely lost the point of investing!

One of my favorite areas to take profits is in the stock market and convert the proceeds into real assets like real estate. This way, I increase the chances that my profits will last and provide utility for a very long time.

Practice Taking Profits To Live Your Best Life

What’s the point of investing money? To pay for a better life. I think many of us forget that investing is just a means to an end.

We set up our automatic bi-weekly investment contributions, come up with a better dollar cost averaging framework, and never touch our money because we want to grow our nest egg as large as possible. But eventually, we must spend, or else there’s really no point.

My #1 reason for saving and investing money is so that I never have to work for someone out of necessity ever again. I make this happen by building as many passive income streams as possible.

Can you imagine being in an arranged marriage (check out Indian Matchmaking on Netflix for a clue)? That’s kind of what work is like because there are always new people coming in where you had no say in their hiring. You put up with people you don’t like because you need the money. Eventually, you’ll have enough where you will make a change.

During my first two years of early retirement I was only about 75% sure I had made the right move. Therefore, I continued to live frugally and stayed disciplined with my saving and investing habits. I invested 100% of my severance check in a couple principal protected structured notes so I wouldn’t be tempted to spend any of it.

It’s been over eight years since I last worked for someone else. During this time, I’ve come to realize the fear of running out of money in retirement is completely overblown. We are adaptable and stronger than we know. If necessary, there are so many ways to make extra money.