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Many of the do-it-yourself investors I work with have U.S. stocks in their portfolios. Given the strong gains in recent years, these holdings have grown faster than others, leading to outsized exposure to the United States.

Since January, I’ve been getting more and more questions from investors about whether it’s a good idea to sell some of their U.S. stocks. Investors are rattled by Washington’s tariff war and the proposed tax changes for Canadians investing in the U.S. The recent conflict in the Middle East has only heightened the anxiety people are feeling.

My answer is always the same: global events should not affect your decision to buy or sell investments. And the proposed tax change? It’s not significant enough for you to alter your investment strategy.

The reality is that stock markets have survived world wars and global recessions. The recent changes to tariffs, and the threat of higher tariffs, are no different.

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When U.S. President Donald Trump announced massive and far-reaching tariffs on his “Liberation Day” in April, stock markets went into a tailspin. But that event, like all others, should be considered part-and-parcel of investing.

The tax announcement is a little different. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act proposes an increase in tax on dividends from U.S. companies to non-U.S. investors. This tax would lower the amount of income Canadians receive from their U.S. stocks, including those they hold in mutual funds and ETFs.

But this proposed tax change is not a reason enough to sell your U.S. stocks. For one thing, the bill is not a done deal. And even if it does pass into law, it may not last long.

More importantly, the impact on most investors will be negligible. U.S. companies as a whole don’t distribute much in dividends. The S&P 500 has a dividend yield of about 1.3 per cent.

That means that if you invest $10,000 in an ETF that tracks the S&P 500, you will receive about $130 in dividends a year. Currently, you pay a 30-per-cent withholding tax on these dividends, which is reduced to 15 per cent thanks to a tax treaty between Canada and the United States. That’s about $20 a year.

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Even if the withholding tax rises to 50 per cent, you will pay just $65 a year in tax. This would drag your returns down by 0.46 per cent a year, which is pretty minor when you consider that over the past 20 years the S&P 500 has returned 11.3 per cent a year on average (in Canadian dollars).

Even the recent turmoil in the Middle East isn’t a reason to change your allocation to U.S. stocks. Generally, the impact of conflicts on stock prices is short-lived.

The key to not worrying about how world events will affect your investments is to have a written investment plan. Because DIY investors make their own decisions, it’s especially important they have one.

An investment plan includes your asset allocation, the types of investments you will own, and what would trigger making a change to your portfolio. It lays out what percentage of your investments will be in cash, bonds and stocks, and how your stocks will be allocated to Canada, the U.S. and international markets.

Once you’ve decided on the allocation, don’t change it. That’s the point of having a plan – no matter what’s happening in the market, economy or politics, you stick with this allocation because study after study has shown that removing emotion and individual judgment calls lead to higher returns for do-it-yourself investors.

It will also allow you to stop worrying about your portfolio – and that’s something every investor should strive for.

Anita Bruinsma is a Toronto-based certified financial planner. You can find her at Clarity Personal Finance.