I’ve lived through many downturns during my career, but this one is different.
Normally market downturns only last two quarters. This one is now in its 5th quarter.
In previous ones, I deliberately stop sending out Financial Zen Performance Reports.
Watching short-term market fluctuations will just make you scared and nauseous.
So sticking your head in the sand is often the best policy.
After all, negative markets are usually over before anyone notices, so pausing performance reports helps prevent people from catastrophizing.
What I’ve learned this time around is a long downturn accompanied by no data and a barrage of negative news makes people think things are worse than they actually are.
So I decided to start producing performance reports to show people that despite being long, this downturn is also very shallow.
I can’t share our portfolio data for compliance reasons, but we invest in indexes, so you can bet we follow market gyrations…
The S&P 500 is down 5.4% over the last twelve months… and up 8.2% year-to-date.
So if you’re wringing your hands over your portfolio, take a minute to see if reality aligns with your perception… because it probably doesn’t.
