Inflation is high and interest rates are rising. Even if you haven’t looked lately, you know that your investment portfolio’s value is comparatively less. There is news that the US market and major economies may be heading for a recession😱.
Stock market crashes make headlines📰. Off late, the market has been down over concerns about the Russian war. Be it the 2000 dot-com🖥️🌐 bubble burst, the 2008 global financial🏦 crisis or the recent covid😷🦠 crash; it’s not much fun when the stock market falls📉. When the market drops, there is fear that it will just keep falling. Every crash was filled with bad news and scary headlines.
What doesn’t usually make the front page is what happens between the crashes. The market scales upwards. Slowly, surely, quietly, but unrelentingly. Those upward marches make up for all the ground lost during the previous crash and then far outpace previous record highs. That steady ascent doesn’t make headlines because it’s not unusual. It’s pretty much ongoing.
In fact, the market has delivered a net positive return for about 75% of the years🗓️. Perhaps journalists are drawn to reporting bad news because sudden disasters are more compelling🧨💥 than slow🐌🐢 improvements. Even during Covid, the market crashed by about 38% in 2020, but finished the year up 16%! Those who sold or stopped investing in March that year due to pandemic apprehensions missed those massive gains.
So while Ujwal may be “unlucky”🐈⬛ that he started to invest at the market peak, that doesn’t really matter. What made him so successful is holding his investment for over 20 years. There were quite a few slumps during that time but he always stayed the course.🏃🏽
So if you’re worried about what to do right now, the boring🥱 solution remains: Spend🛍️ less than you earn and invest the difference. Even if you’re “Unlucky Ujwal”, you’ll still end up fabulously wealthy💎🍾👑🎰.
