Have you ever considered how hurricanes and large tropical storms affect your investment portfolio? Consider if you will that if you live in the region where a hurricane will soon strike then you may be forced to evacuate with you and your family. These mandatory evacuations take you away from being able to monitor your investments.

Even if you have Internet by cell phone, or can call your broker in another state often during the evacuation periods the cell towers are maxed out. This means you were in a giant cluster muck of traffic trying to leave the region where you live and you have no idea what the hurricane is doing to the market.

A sharp up tick in sweet crude oil prices can cause havoc in the stock market. Also consider if you are investing in real estate in the region where you live and a hurricane comes along and wipes out your rental properties. There is not be a lot you can do and Mother Nature is going to do whatever it does without your permission.

Investing and hurricanes go hand-in-hand and each time the hurricane turns towards a different shoreline the dynamics of the market change and so too can your investments. Often sharp drops in the market in certain sectors may not return for several months and when you get back to the devastated area from which you evacuated you may need to sell some of those investments to revitalize your property. Hurricanes and investing is something you might be considering during the 2006 Atlantic tropical hurricane season.

Lance Winslow

Currently Lance is retired at age 40 and is running an Online Think Tank Forum while traveling North America. Perhaps considering something extremely challenging to do that will exercise his mind and utilize all his experiences, observations and skills. Any ideas?