"Global jitters" was used in the media 933 times last week to describe why the market was falling, according to Google. Thanks, that's really helpful. It's the equivalent of a doctor diagnosing you with "general illness."
S&P 500 companies earned something around $38 billion in profits over the last two weeks. Over time, that number will matter far more than what the market did during the last two weeks.
The biggest impediments to a comfortable retirement are impatience, pessimism, gullibility, self-interest of middlemen, ignorance of the exponential function, and overconfidence. All six come out during market downturns.
President Obama was briefed after the market fell 10%. I guarantee you he's not briefed after it rises 10%. Asymmetric emotional responses explain so much of why investing is difficult.
Daily market prices are determined by computers in New Jersey fighting to be a billionth of a second closer to exchanges than other computers. Business values are determined by 7 billion people waking up every morning trying to better themselves. If you bet on the latter and laugh at the former, you've figured half this game out.
If this decline keeps up, it could be as bad as the 2011, 2010, and 2004 downturns that no one remembers or cares about anymore.
When no one knows what the economy or stock market will do next, people say there's high uncertainty. This is different from low uncertainty, when people think they know what the economy and stock market will do next, invariably followed by being wrong, which they blame on high uncertainty.
U.S. investors have $16 trillion in mutual funds. It sounds huge when they withdraw $20 billion, but it's a fraction of 1% of what's outstanding. Even during big downturns, "Nearly all investors do nothing; go about their day; couldn't care less about yuan devaluation" is the most accurate headline.
"Be greedy when others are fearful" sounds obvious during bull markets, smart during small pullbacks, reasonable during medium pullbacks, and impossible during big downturns.
Your odds of dying in a car accident during your life are 1 in 74. That rarely makes headlines. The odds of an investor experiencing a big market crash during their life are 100%. But we treat it like it's something rare and dangerous.
Stocks are down a lot in the last month, down a little in the last year, up a lot over the last six years, and up a little over the last eight years. Pick your narrative, and you can tell a persuasive story.
I greatly appreciate your volatility outlook of continued weakness given your prescient forecast of 96 of the last two bear markets.
Ninety-three percent of the world does not own stocks. Zero percent of market commentators can believe this.
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