Since 2020 members of the Ruedi Wealth team have been writing weekly investing and retirement planning columns for our local newspaper, The News-Gazette.
When people hear valuations are close to where they were during the dot-com bubble and subsequent crash, many want to abandon their investments until after an “inevitable” crash occurs. But is that a good idea?
We began writing weekly newspaper columns in April of 2020. At the end of that month, the S&P 500 index closed at 2,912.43. Hovering around 7,000 these days, the S&P 500 has more than doubled since then. But if those six years seemed like an ideal time to be an investor, think again.
When the market faces adversity in the future, as it inevitably will, investors will once again be tested. At that point though they will be tempted to think “this time is different.” They should instead focus on the fact that “this too shall pass.”
We get a peak to trough decline of 10% or more almost every year. They show up with such a frequency that on our radio show we often refer to declines of this magnitude as the “crosstown bus.”