Don't get me wrong, I love the stock market. But I swear sometimes I think someone needs to get it high and tell it to chill the f**k out. It's like a toddler that can't sit still. Tariffs? Inflation? Down half a point. Two days later, nothing's changed, we're back up a half-point. Collectively, investors have the attention span of a horny gnat.
The only thing screwier than the market are these business shows that act as if they know why the market behaves as it does. Market is down a bunch on a given day and "they" say it's because of X. Next day it bounces back and more and they say it's also because of X. So which is it.
Besides, if they were any good at the market, they would be sitting home or on the beach or on their yacht sipping an adult beverage instead of yammering on on a TV show.
There's a market for information, because everybody wants to believe they can crack the code and win big. And sometimes people get lucky and score, and that makes them believe the information helped, when in fact they got lucky. But even Warren Buffett, arguably the greatest investor of all time, has made some really big blunders.
I've been guilty myself of attempting to mimic Buffett. But as he points out, it's not really possible for the retail investor. He buys entire companies. His best advice for the vast majority of investors is an S&P Index fund. "Nobody," he says, "beats the S&P 500 over 20 years."
Most of my advisors are skeptical of, even horrified by, the aggressiveness of my various portfolios at my age. But I keep pointing out that my state retirement plan is very conservative, and with my pension and Social Security I'll be able to retire on that alone, and if necessary I'll unload the house and downsize. So I'm being very aggressive with everything else, because I'm enough ahead that I can handle a 20%-30% correction without being in trouble. The COVID bear markets nearly wiped out my returns since 2017. I just shrugged and stayed with it, didn't adjust a thing, and it all came roaring back. That taught me a big lesson.
