Perhaps there will be a year when I don’t think about it. But in early March every year for the last fourteen years I remember how bad everything felt in March of 2009. I like to revisit the Wall Street Journal article “Dow 5,000? There’s a case for it.” It opens:
“Just how low can stocks go? Despite Friday’s small gains . . .”
It goes on to suggest that the ugliness for the economy and the stock market was probably just getting started. But “Friday’s small gains” were the green shoots of what would be an unprecedented bull market. This doomsday article literally appeared on the first full trading day of the longest bull market for equities in U.S. history. But I remember reading the article on March 9, 2009. I remember the feeling in my stomach at the idea of more losses. Nothing felt bullish that day.
The lesson here is that nobody has the perspective to know what will happen next. We’re always too close to the action to see where we are within the big picture. That fact really should liberate us from worrying about or trying to predict the future.
When you’re in the woods, all you see are the trees. It helps to have a compass and a map--or you know--a GPS. Are we in a recession? Will we have a soft landing? What will unemployment look like next month? I don’t know. But I do know how to plan based on your circumstances; how to create a map and how to help folks stick to it. Let's chat if it's time to review or update your plan.
|