Greetings everyone, so as some of you have heard there is a bit of a crisis going on in the market for oil at the moment. This isn’t just being contained to one country either, it’s been hitting the entirety of the global oil market.
I won’t bother stating an oil price right now as it’s just so volatile right now that there is no point but I will point out that the WTI oil price hit well into the negatives per barrel.
That’s right! the cost of a barrel of oil was actually worth negative money.
So, with all the stock market volatility going on… why is it that we are actually more focused on the oil market and why does this have a larger effect on our F.I.R.E. plans?
Job Security
This is number one on our mind right now, we live in Alberta where Canadian oil is currently being devastated and our job security is probably at an all time low.
Thanks to the growing concern over our long term job prospects it has forced us into somewhat of a defensive position.
What does a defensive position mean to us? Well the main change is that we are largely stockpiling our cash with very little fresh capital being deposited into our brokerage accounts. We are reinvesting dividends and whatever cash we already had in our accounts but saving is our #1 priority right now.
Investing
As we covered in our previous point we are no longer adding fresh capital into the accounts, but what about the dividends and cash we already have sitting there?
These funds will no longer go towards the oil sector. We do currently have roughly 5.8% oil exposure in our portfolio, and we’ve now adjusted our target exposure to 5% so we are slightly “over exposed” but it’s not something that we would make any adjustments off of.
The real reason for our halting oil sector investments isn’t actually because of this over allocation though. It comes down to diversifying risk, and looking at how a portfolio and occupation are actually intertwined.
Obviously, if you were 100% invested in oil (or say real estate) and your job is also in oil (or real estate) then you are truly 100% exposed to that sector and are taking an abnormally large amount of risk for no real reason.
Seeing as an oil market crash that continues for a lengthy amount of time will likely result in our main income going to $0, plus our oil sector investments getting hammered and dividends etc. being cut there just is no longer a safe way to proceed adding our funds into this sector.
We feel that if we are to lose our jobs or our household income is greatly impacted by this lull in the market then we want that to have as little to do with our other investments and passive income as possible so that we’re not being hit from all sides.
When might things change?
Our stance on this topic is likely to stay this way for at least all of 2020 and potentially further on. If we are able to build up our emergency funds to closer to 6 figures and the price of oil is back on steady grounds then we may consider dabbling back into the sector for our passive income portfolios.
6 figures may seem excessive for an emergency fund – and trust me I think so too! but one big change in our life has been the addition of our new little man Baby 1.
Having a child in the equation has drastically and immediately altered my risk tolerance especially when I consider the job I happen to work. If I were working in a job where I had 110% security then all of this would be a moot point – but it’s not.
Wrap Up
So that’s what oil is doing to our F.I.R.E. right now. It’s probably more of a headache than all of the stock market turmoil of March but it’s nothing that we can’t overcome.
To all of you out there, how are you guys coping with this oil crisis on top of the virus, on top of the isolation, on top of the stock market volatility? We’d like to know how all of our readers are coping and overcoming these obstacles so feel free to leave a message below or contact us on Instagram @FindependenceCanada
Thanks for stopping by,
FIC.