The capital market · · 7 min read
Investing during a war? Deciding when the headlines are frightening
Investing during a war, or pausing? How to tell what changed at home from what changed in the headline, and why the emergency fund and your agreement go first.
Another alert slides across the phone, then another. A headline you read twice, then a third time to be sure. The same evening, in a different tab, the form for the monthly deposit you decided on months ago, on an ordinary day, is still open. The amount is already typed in. Your finger doesn't press.
Two sentences are in the room. One is loud: "Anyone investing right now doesn't understand what's going on." The other is quieter and comes from inside: "We're just not steady enough for the market." From there it tends to go one of two familiar ways. More news, another hour of scrolling, to work out "when this ends". Or a quick decision to stop everything "until things calm down", which feels mature and responsible.
Part of you wants to stop, and that isn't cowardice. You want a sense of control at a moment when very little is in anyone's control, and stopping gives you something solid: "we did something." That is entirely legitimate. Part of you wants to keep building a future through a hard stretch, because the children will grow up after this news cycle too. Both are worth listening to, and both are looking after the same family. The only question is what decides: the headline or the home.
News and the stock market: why a headline feels like a forecast
This isn't a lack of nerve, and it isn't your fault. In 1973, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman described in the journal Cognitive Psychology what became known as the availability heuristic: the mind judges how likely something is by how easily it comes to mind. A strong headline, a hard image, an alert that keeps arriving, each of these makes a scenario very available. Once it is available, it feels close. And from close it is a short step to feeling like a forecast.
A headline describes today. It does not know what the market will do tomorrow, and nobody does. That is why this article contains no figures about what markets did in earlier periods: they answer a different question from the one you need to decide tonight.
The useful question is not "what will the market do" but "what has changed in our home". Income, a reserve-duty call-up, job security, expenses due in the coming months. These you know. These you can decide on.
And "waiting for calm" is, in practice, an attempt at timing: assuming it will be obvious when to come back. What timing asks of you, and the written rule that replaces the guess, has its own article: market timing.
Investing in uncertain times: what you want on paper by the weekend
The goal for the coming week is small and exact. One shared list of what changed at home and what changed only in the headline, and an emergency fund that holds the coming months. Without more news in order to decide, without pretending you aren't afraid, and without either of you deciding alone on a hard evening.
What people in this situation describe is changing the plan only when something at home has changed. What you write down is your decision.
Pausing deposits or carrying on: four decisions made on an ordinary day
Stage 1: the emergency fund first, and separately
Money you may need in the coming months doesn't belong in the "invest or not" question at all. It belongs to the household's peace of mind. So the first stage has nothing to do with the market: check that there is a separate, named emergency fund that covers the coming months of your expenses. How big it should be and where people keep it is in the emergency fund guide.
Once that fund exists, the investment deposit is money already set aside for the long term. That is a completely different question from "will we be able to pay next month".
Months until the emergency fund is full
Time to the target
10 months
In AlphaHome: a savings goal called "Emergency fund", with an amount and a date. On the dashboard, the savings-goals widget shows how much the goal still needs each month to arrive on time, so on a loud evening you check one number instead of one more headline.
Stage 2: two columns
One sheet, a line down the middle. On one side, "what changed for us". On the other, "what changed only in the headline". No predictions, only facts about the household.
What changed for us, and what changed only in the headline
| Aspect | What changed for us | Only in the headline |
|---|---|---|
| Income | One of us has a reserve-duty call-up, and income will change | Headlines about damage to the economy |
| Work | Notice of reduced shifts | Headlines about hiring freezes |
| Expenses | Equipment, travel, helping parents | Headlines about the cost of living |
| Time | Fewer free hours for money matters | Headlines about market swings |
What changed for us
- Income
- One of us has a reserve-duty call-up, and income will change
- Work
- Notice of reduced shifts
- Expenses
- Equipment, travel, helping parents
- Time
- Fewer free hours for money matters
The headline column can run very long, and that's fine. The decision rests on the household column. If something at home did change, a call-up for example, there are rights and payments worth knowing about; the current information is on Kol Zchut (כל זכות), on its pages about reservists' rights and emergency periods.
Stage 3: when something at home really changed
Sometimes the household column isn't empty. Income dropped, expenses rose, the months ahead look less certain. Here are options people in this situation weigh. They are described as options, not as a recommendation:
- Reducing the deposit for a defined period, with a date to look again.
- Pausing it, and writing down in advance what would restart it.
- Redirecting it, for a while, into a bigger emergency fund.
What the three share is that each answers something that happened at home, not a headline. Which one, if any, is your decision.
Stage 4: a couple's money agreement, written on an ordinary day
The hardest decision is the one made in the evening, alone, after an hour of news. So the agreement gets written today, while it is relatively quiet. A few lines are enough:
An example of our agreement for loud days
0 of 5 done
The fourth line looks minor and does a lot. News read a minute before a money decision brings exactly the bias described above into the room.
In AlphaHome: a shared household. Both partners see the same goals and the same numbers, so the agreement rests on one picture rather than two feelings. A partner is invited by email.
When the headline tries to decide anyway
"We paused the deposits for three months, and can't quite remember why." When you paused, you wanted a sense of control, and you got it: "we did something." That isn't failure; it was a real need. Today: open the two columns and check whether anything at home has changed since. What people in this situation describe is that if only the headline changed, they go back to the plan as written; the decision is yours. Next time: add a line to the agreement about pausing, for how long and who decides to resume.
"The fear is real, and something here really did change." Here your worry is right, and it is worry for the family. Today: check the emergency fund against the coming months' expenses, using the income that will be, not the income that was. Next time: the emergency fund target gets reviewed on the day something at home changes, not on the day the news does.
One of you wants to stop, the other wants to carry on. You are both protecting the same thing in different ways. Today: each of you fills in the two columns separately, then compare. What couples describe is that the disagreement shrinks once each sees what the other wrote in the household column. Next time: a regular money conversation, not only on hard days; a shared couple's budget shows what one looks like.
Deciding calmly, together
Whoever decides by the headline will decide again with every headline. Whoever keeps two columns and a written agreement decides once, on an ordinary day, as two. That isn't indifference. It is the difference between the world and your kitchen table.
If the knot in your stomach is about investments that have already fallen, that has its own article.
Steady nerves were never the requirement. A sheet, two columns and an agreement were. We decide calmly, together, by what is happening with us.
This week: sit down together for half an hour and write the two columns, "what changed for us" and "what changed only in the headline", plus one sentence of agreement that begins "On a loud day, we…". Then open the emergency fund goal in AlphaHome and check that the amount and the date still hold.
Do one thing this week
Open AlphaHome, record this month's income and fixed charges, and see how much is really free to spend. Everything in this article starts from that number.