For years, volatility has been the name of the investment game. 

Angelenos looking to build generational wealth or bolster savings have long weathered a storm fueled by geopolitical instability, inflation concerns and growing unease about economic fundamentals. 

In 2026, the tide may not turn to stability, but smart investments bring resilience and secure growth, says Stacey McKinnon, chief operating and marketing officer at Calabasas-based financial advisory firm Morton Wealth. 

While a select group of bullish investors has sowed strong returns from buoyant though hardly predictable markets, some have centered alternative investments, such as private credit, asset-backed lending and commodities, in constructing portfolios. 

McKinnon, who manages roughly $100 million in assets across 30 clients, says those strategies are less about chasing upside and more about protecting principal while generating steady returns.

In a conversation with the Business Journal, McKinnon offered a look into her conversations with clients at Morton, many of whom are business-owners or retiring high-net-worth household heads, on investing in today’s economic climate.

Where should investors be putting new money right now? Has that changed in the last year, and why?If you’re talking about new money that they need to use in the next few years, do not take high risk with it. I would not recommend putting it in the markets. If you’re a long-term investor, some money should be allocated to stocks. 

The challenge that I’m faced with, and I think a lot of people are faced with, is that, numerically and scientifically, the market shouldn’t have gone up as much as it’s gone up in the last few years especially. The markets keep going up, and people continue to have the optimism of the markets going up, and they’re taking high-flying bets on different types of assets, but at some point, that turns.

If somebody needs their money in the next three years, I probably wouldn’t take the risk of the market. I would recommend putting it in something that is shorter term (that) maybe provides some cash flow and income. We’ve been doing a lot of private lending, or private credit strategies, where you essentially give a dollar amount, it’s a loan, and you get an interest rate in return. 

The biggest conviction area that we have today is lending on assets. What that looks like, as an example, you could give a loan to a company that needs a medical device. In the private lending space, you can get income in like the 8% to 12% range, as opposed to in the bond space, you can get income right now in more the 3% to 6% range. If you don’t go in the public markets and you go in the private markets, you tend to be able to get higher income and higher yields.

Another one of our staple positions is in gold and gold miners. We think of gold as the store of value. We’ve seen a huge run up of gold and some and other commodities over the last year. That’s been a really attractive space for us.

What’s your advice for investors looking to make smart adjustments but not overreact to market swings and headlines?At the end of the day, I think that you have to plan before something happens, right? One of the reasons that we’re so passionate about diversification is if everything doesn’t go up together, it’s all going down together, and we want to find as much as possible that’s not correlated to the general economy. 

When we talk about these loans that are backed by assets, if the market crashes, those loans are probably going to be fine, because it’s real assets that you can resell for a good value. Maybe it takes a little bit more time to sell them, but that’s not a 50% decline like we saw in 2008. You might get 5% income instead of 10% income for a while, but that’s not a risk to principal either. When we talk about market swings and market corrections, our clients, in general, they don’t move at all for that.

A lot of times, our clients have to emotionally accept that they may not make the returns that their friends are making in high flyers because they’re making a choice to have a steady experience as opposed to a volatile experience.

What’s one trend in client behavior over the past year that has surprised you?What’s interesting to me is, even though the markets keep going up, a client trend is that more and more people are looking at the stock market being like, “It doesn’t make sense. Like, intuitively, it doesn’t track, and I don’t want to gamble with my life savings. I want to make the wise, long-term decision, as opposed to being moved by short-term noise.”

What kinds of risks are investors most worried about right now, and how are those concerns shaping their decisions?I have never in my life experienced so much political stress. Whether it’s people who are more left-leaning and they’re just incredibly concerned about the (presidential) office, or it’s people who are more right-leaning and they’re really excited but they still aren’t sure how everything is going to pan out. 

After the election, there was a lot of euphoria that we had to manage for some clients where they were excited because Trump campaigned on pushing the markets up and he was going to fix inflation and make grocery bills more affordable. On both sides of the table, there’s so many emotions tied to the political environment, so (it takes) acknowledging that we cannot control that, and all we can control is investing in things that we can touch and feel and see.

After several years of strong market returns, are you having more conversations with clients about tempering expectations going forward?One of the things that’s really hard for probably most advisers is that we’ve all been tempering expectations for years. The best analogy I can give you is the boy who cried wolf. I think most advisers probably have been crying wolf for a long time, and then it doesn’t pan out. The markets keep coming back and they keep roaring, and for anybody who didn’t dive in, they’ve missed out on some pretty substantial returns over the last decade. 

The challenge though, for me, is that the math still doesn’t math. I understand the stimulus has driven a significant amount of market returns, but I don’t know. I think that unemployment data is going to be a pretty big factor in market correction going forward, because the big factor here is that companies eventually are going to say, “I can’t do it anymore. I can’t keep up.” And you’re already seeing that happen in tech, where there’s significant layoffs. 

Are there any other factors outside of investments that people should be considering in growing wealth?One of the biggest risks I’ve seen to client success is that investing is only one factor of sound financial plans. What sometimes happens is clients have an investment manager, and they have a (Certified Public Accountant), and they have an insurance person, and then they have all of these different parties that are all working in isolation of one another. 

One of the best pieces of advice that I could give any client is build a team and make that team talk to each other. Your financial adviser and your CPA should be BFFs. Your investment strategy can’t be disconnected from your estate planning strategy if you’re really thinking about multi-generational wealth.

For years, volatility has been the name of the investment game. 

Angelenos looking to build generational wealth or bolster savings have long weathered a storm fueled by geopolitical instability, inflation concerns and growing unease about economic fundamentals. 

In 2026, the tide may not turn to stability, but smart investments bring resilience and secure growth, says Stacey McKinnon, chief operating and marketing officer at Calabasas-based financial advisory firm Morton Wealth. 

While a select group of bullish investors has sowed strong returns from buoyant though hardly predictable markets, some have centered alternative investments, such as private credit, asset-backed lending and commodities, in constructing portfolios. 

McKinnon, who manages roughly $100 million in assets across 30 clients, says those strategies are less about chasing upside and more about protecting principal while generating steady returns.

In a conversation with the Business Journal, McKinnon offered a look into her conversations with clients at Morton, many of whom are business-owners or retiring high-net-worth household heads, on investing in today’s economic climate.

Where should investors be putting new money right now? Has that changed in the last year, and why?If you’re talking about new money that they need to use in the next few years, do not take high risk with it. I would not recommend putting it in the markets. If you’re a long-term investor, some money should be allocated to stocks. 

The challenge that I’m faced with, and I think a lot of people are faced with, is that, numerically and scientifically, the market shouldn’t have gone up as much as it’s gone up in the last few years especially. The markets keep going up, and people continue to have the optimism of the markets going up, and they’re taking high-flying bets on different types of assets, but at some point, that turns.

If somebody needs their money in the next three years, I probably wouldn’t take the risk of the market. I would recommend putting it in something that is shorter term (that) maybe provides some cash flow and income. We’ve been doing a lot of private lending, or private credit strategies, where you essentially give a dollar amount, it’s a loan, and you get an interest rate in return. 

The biggest conviction area that we have today is lending on assets. What that looks like, as an example, you could give a loan to a company that needs a medical device. In the private lending space, you can get income in like the 8% to 12% range, as opposed to in the bond space, you can get income right now in more the 3% to 6% range. If you don’t go in the public markets and you go in the private markets, you tend to be able to get higher income and higher yields.

Another one of our staple positions is in gold and gold miners. We think of gold as the store of value. We’ve seen a huge run up of gold and some and other commodities over the last year. That’s been a really attractive space for us.

What’s your advice for investors looking to make smart adjustments but not overreact to market swings and headlines?At the end of the day, I think that you have to plan before something happens, right? One of the reasons that we’re so passionate about diversification is if everything doesn’t go up together, it’s all going down together, and we want to find as much as possible that’s not correlated to the general economy. 

When we talk about these loans that are backed by assets, if the market crashes, those loans are probably going to be fine, because it’s real assets that you can resell for a good value. Maybe it takes a little bit more time to sell them, but that’s not a 50% decline like we saw in 2008. You might get 5% income instead of 10% income for a while, but that’s not a risk to principal either. When we talk about market swings and market corrections, our clients, in general, they don’t move at all for that.

A lot of times, our clients have to emotionally accept that they may not make the returns that their friends are making in high flyers because they’re making a choice to have a steady experience as opposed to a volatile experience.

What’s one trend in client behavior over the past year that has surprised you?What’s interesting to me is, even though the markets keep going up, a client trend is that more and more people are looking at the stock market being like, “It doesn’t make sense. Like, intuitively, it doesn’t track, and I don’t want to gamble with my life savings. I want to make the wise, long-term decision, as opposed to being moved by short-term noise.”

What kinds of risks are investors most worried about right now, and how are those concerns shaping their decisions?I have never in my life experienced so much political stress. Whether it’s people who are more left-leaning and they’re just incredibly concerned about the (presidential) office, or it’s people who are more right-leaning and they’re really excited but they still aren’t sure how everything is going to pan out. 

After the election, there was a lot of euphoria that we had to manage for some clients where they were excited because Trump campaigned on pushing the markets up and he was going to fix inflation and make grocery bills more affordable. On both sides of the table, there’s so many emotions tied to the political environment, so (it takes) acknowledging that we cannot control that, and all we can control is investing in things that we can touch and feel and see.

After several years of strong market returns, are you having more conversations with clients about tempering expectations going forward?One of the things that’s really hard for probably most advisers is that we’ve all been tempering expectations for years. The best analogy I can give you is the boy who cried wolf. I think most advisers probably have been crying wolf for a long time, and then it doesn’t pan out. The markets keep coming back and they keep roaring, and for anybody who didn’t dive in, they’ve missed out on some pretty substantial returns over the last decade. 

The challenge though, for me, is that the math still doesn’t math. I understand the stimulus has driven a significant amount of market returns, but I don’t know. I think that unemployment data is going to be a pretty big factor in market correction going forward, because the big factor here is that companies eventually are going to say, “I can’t do it anymore. I can’t keep up.” And you’re already seeing that happen in tech, where there’s significant layoffs. 

Are there any other factors outside of investments that people should be considering in growing wealth?One of the biggest risks I’ve seen to client success is that investing is only one factor of sound financial plans. What sometimes happens is clients have an investment manager, and they have a (Certified Public Accountant), and they have an insurance person, and then they have all of these different parties that are all working in isolation of one another. 

One of the best pieces of advice that I could give any client is build a team and make that team talk to each other. Your financial adviser and your CPA should be BFFs. Your investment strategy can’t be disconnected from your estate planning strategy if you’re really thinking about multi-generational wealth.