The U.S. stock market is basically flat for the year, which is hard to believe given the wild, full circle ride we took to get here.
If you missed out on merely the five best performing days of the U.S. stock market this year, you would be down 30%. Read that again until it hits with its full gravity.
That is why we 1) advocate for not trading in and out of the market because you will subject yourself to ending up on the wrong side of that fact, and 2) encourage our clients to tune out the mainstream financial media which can cause us to engage in such costly behavior.
Lesson 1
The mainstream financial media’s primary goal is to sell advertising.
The more viewers they have glued to their stations and websites…
→ the more they can sell their advertising for.
The more sensationalized, wildly pessimistic or optimistic their content is…
→ the more viewers they will have glued to their stations and websites.
Repeat until you have a media company worth billions of dollars.
Ahem...
Lesson 2 Watching such sensationalized media activates the primal, flight-or-fight portions of our brains. “I must do something with my investments” is the modern day equivalent of “I must run or fight this saber tooth tiger to survive.” That reflexive reaction kept our ancestors alive. Paradoxically, it will now ruin a modern day investor. Lesson 3 Financial planner D. Muthukrishnan succinctly teaches us a very valuable lesson better than I can:
If you would like to chat about anything personal finance related, please give me a call or book some time on my calendar below. We're always here for you.
Call me: 941.544.2269. Text me: 941.877.6011.
Moore Financial Management, Inc. is an Investment Adviser registered with the State of Florida. Our current disclosure brochure, Form ADV Part 2, is available for your review upon request. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.