Many look to womens’ hemlines as a stock market predictor. But there are others.
The original Top Gun with Tom Cruise was released on May 16, 1986 with the S&P 500 standing at 656.71.
I admit that I lost faith, and exited the market for two years after the Oct 19, 1987 Black Monday market crash that saw a one-day 22.6% decline. I’m about 25% poorer as a result today.
But, buy & hold investors who held for the whole 36-year long ride hit 4,641.99 on Jan 4th of this year. A $100 invested when Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell first took flight is worth $3,635 today with dividends reinvested. You didn’t get anything like that in a Treasury bond.
Maverick’s a Navy Captain now – older, wiser, and has better equipment. I see us going higher and faster over the next 36 years.
But, buy & hold investors who held for the whole 36-year long ride hit 4,641.99 on Jan 4th of this year. A $100 invested when Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell first took flight is worth $3,635 today with dividends reinvested. You didn’t get anything like that in a Treasury bond.
It happened once. Ever. In all our lifetimes. If you bought a 13% 30-year treasury bond in 1981/82, then it returned about $3,900 for every $100 invested after 30 years. It isn’t likely to ever happen again, not in our lifetime not in our children’s lifetime not in our grandchildren’s lifetime.
Don’t get misdirected by short-term market action like I did back in 1987. Invest for the long haul, minimize the “skim”, and capture all the gain.
METAR folks are older. Most of us don’t have 36 years left to invest. And, most of us are generally very conservative when it comes to investing. If we hd younger folks here to preach this advice to, it would be much more effective, but there are hardly any younger folks on these boards (and the boards are rapidly dying anyway, I used to participate in 10+ boards regularly, now only 1, maybe 2, but only this one has any reasonable activity). I’d love to find a new place to discuss economics/macro/micro/investments, tried facebook and twitter, but those are cesspools of OT stuff.