A notable number of investors still remain skittish regarding risk exposure to equities. Despite some record highs in 2013, the stock market remains volatile – as shown by a Standard & Poor’s 500 Index decline in the middle of this past February, down slightly more than six percent from its January 2014 peak.

“These market fluctuations are worth watching,” says Stacy Bush, president of Bush Wealth Management, LLC, based in Valdosta, Georgia. But they aren’t cause for panic or hesitancy to remain in or, especially, to get back in the market. “This is particularly the case if a retirement income that even slightly resembles one’s working days income is a goal,” Bush noted.

“So many people do not want exposure to equities today,” Bush said. This hesitancy is based on the great losses sustained during the 2008 and 2009 Great Recession, when average stocks fell nearly 36 percent during the first year alone. “But to grow accumulated wealth to mitigate inflation, taxes and longevity, investors have to have exposure to equities in their portfolios for the money to last long enough to fund what are now increasingly longer retirements.”

He knows all too well the experience of being without cash flow. Growing up on a peanut farm in Georgia, Bush watched helplessly as his parents were forced into bankruptcy in 1986, after struggling for several years to overcome the effects of the harsh droughts in 1977 and 1979. That experience set him on a career path in financial services based on a desire to help other families avoid going through the same thing. After a few years working as a missionary in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, he returned home to start his own firm. Even then, things weren’t too flush. He recalls – with perhaps a bit of fondness he doesn’t wish to repeat – the times his wife made him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while they lunched in the parking lot of a grocery store, because he was working out of his vehicle and they couldn’t afford to eat at a restaurant.

“It was challenging at first,” he recalls. “Extremely gloomy.”

Persistence paid off, and since then Bush has built a steady business providing financial advice to agricultural enterprises, widowed and divorced women and educators. These social groups are his primary focus as they are often under-served by other financial advisors.

He is hopeful that the current national discussion regarding the establishment of a uniform fiduciary standard isn’t simply just talk.

“I certainly hope so,” he said in regard to whether regulations governing all types of financial advisors under one standard may be enacted. “It baffles my mind that someone would potentially not act in the client’s best interest. Thus the concept of a fiduciary standard is very important.”

Learn more about Bush Wealth Management online at www.bushwealthmanagement.com