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What separates sensible investing from reckless speculating?

If a genius like Sir Isaac Newton can get swept up in an investor mania and fall victim to his own emotions, then clearly no amount of intelligence can guarantee against investing mistakes.

What was hyped as the investment of the century turned out to be yet another cautionary tale about the dangers of chasing the hot stock of the day. Though some initial investors had the chance to come out ahead, almost every post-IPO buyer of SpaceX is currently sitting on losses.

As strange as it sounds, I often tell clients I hope they get a tough bear market early in retirement. That is because a bear market is the ultimate test of a retirement planning process.

Though investors can readily look at stock price, or the value of a small portion of a company, the total value of the company or “market capitalization” is often less understood.

It can take less than a decade for your existing savings to start driving more of your portfolio growth than your annual additions