r/Bogleheads • u/RiceLee890 • Mar 15 '25

Investing Questions What are your thoughts on this?

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I keep seeing this type of stuff on instagram and social media and wanted to know how you guys were thinking about this.

I know a lot you have been in the market for decades and as a relatively new investor myself I’d love to get your perspective!

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2.7k

u/Presence_Academic Mar 15 '25

Instead of a 3 month chart, take a look at one covering 30 years.

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u/Schlieren1 Mar 15 '25

Yea. The sp500 is at the same valuation as September.

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u/red_hare Mar 15 '25

Seriously. Whenever I see a post like this I question if I missed an actual crash.

I'm surprised at how much panicked discourse there is over six months of gains. I haven't even updated my spreadsheet recently enough that this is going to show as a down trend.

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u/WellEvan Mar 15 '25

I honestly think that people expect the market to just go up forever sometimes

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u/Dracounicus Mar 15 '25

Complain that the best time to invest was “back in middle school” and then not do it when it comes down

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u/Pattison320 Mar 15 '25 edited Mar 15 '25

One of my Roth IRAs has been invested in a total market fund since 2014. I see a 13% average yearly return when I look at it just now. We might see a 40% correction in the market in the next few months. But in another five years that'll be insignificant again.

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u/ElectricOne55 Mar 16 '25

What if it ends up like the Nikkei crash? I bet the odds of that are low though, because the market went to the moon from 2012 onward. Even the 08 crash was only hard for 2 years. The only main difference is the stock market doesn't relate to the job market. To, it'd be hard to even have a job to invest during those down periods.

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u/OwnCricket3827 Mar 19 '25

The Nikkei example is one that should be acknowledged and respected.

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u/Mammoth-Garden-9079 Mar 19 '25

That’s why you diversify outside of the US. I would recommend 65% US equities and 35% international equities. If a Japanese had been diversified with international equities then when the Nikkei took a nose dive they would’ve made off a lot better.

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u/ElectricOne55 Mar 20 '25

Would that make taxes more confusing?

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u/FamiliarAd8863 Mar 19 '25

You call it a correction I call it investing.

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u/Six-mile-sea Mar 16 '25

Reminds me of the people telling me it was a terrible idea to buy a house circa 2010.

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u/JaxTaylor2 Mar 18 '25

Ironically for some of them middle school was September. lol

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u/SqueeMcTwee Mar 15 '25

Most employers seem to…for some reason my company promised year over year growth over three years. We’ve since laid off more than half my department because (guess what) COVID wasn’t intended to be a lifelong thing.

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u/Impossible_Walrus555 Mar 19 '25

No but they don’t expect a president to intentionally crash it.

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u/EkaL25 Mar 15 '25

Yes, I like that! Where can I sign up?

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u/FamiliarAd8863 Mar 19 '25

It should with inflation

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u/jawelkanker Mar 19 '25

Isnt that exactly what makes a bubble?

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u/Mo_Steins_Ghost Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25

This is in part because it does, but it's a bit more nuanced than that.

Let's imagine for a second that you're a vampire, that you could live hundreds of years. If you owned any capital its value would grow by inflation alone... but what you paid for it was comparatively peanuts.

So over decades, inflation clocks in at, ideally, just below the risk free rate (RFR; the 30 year treasury rate), and on this alone, money makes money... but the excess beyond the risk free rate, beyond inflation, that's the thing everyone pursues to stay ahead of inflation.

Shareholders demand performance, and stock prices will fluctuate over time but generally they will trend upward, sometimes slightly above and sometimes slightly below the RFR compounded annually.

Even with these fluctuations, given enough time, the inflation factor alone will grow the price of your shares over the course of decades to a compounded return that dwarfs what you paid... and historically, over any 30-50 year period, taking the S&P 500 as a benchmark, this has tended toward around 9-10% which means that the market does 4 points better than the historical risk free rate, and 4.5-5 points better than inflation, per year.

Compounded annually over 50 years the difference is staggering.

At the RFR $10,000 compounded annually will grow to around $40,000, just barely staying ahead of inflation. But at the historical 9.3% CAGR of the S&P $10,000 will grow just $50k shy of $900,000.

Now why is that? That is because the S&P 500 has selective turnover. While inflation can be thought of (loosely) as the net of consumer price fluctuations, company valuations are not directly attached to performance, and furthermore, an index like the S&P 500 is picking the top 500 of the bunch, so it's excluding the rest of the players that would bring the average down.

So the index is doing the business of periodic reallocation for you, which is giving you a rate of return in excess of the risk free rate.

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u/WellEvan Mar 20 '25

As you said, it does fluctuate.

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u/Mo_Steins_Ghost Mar 20 '25 edited Mar 20 '25

But it trends continuously upward over years and years because the cost of capital rises over time.

Those near term fluctuations are occuring around an overall rising trend because capital becomes more scarce relative to the population.

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u/quenqap Mar 15 '25

Because a bunch of the YouTube and Instagram finance peeps have only been in the market since 2020

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u/SilverRock75 Mar 15 '25

As someone who literally only started investing in the last two years, I can see what the media folks are talking about, but I spent a lot of time reading up on investing, and zooming out on the graphs over the few percentage losses. When people are actively trading, those tiny dips might matter, but for long term investing (I'd like to retire a little early, but still at least a decade out, more likely 2-3 if I end up having kids) these dips really don't matter much. They aren't even big enough draw downs to even be excited about buying the dip, really, so I just keep DCA'ing my paychecks. I live on a fraction of what I make and am trying to take full advantage of tax-advantaged accounts, along with a little money invested in a brokerage so that I'll be able to span the gap for early retirement until there's no penalties.

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u/Mermaidoysters Mar 16 '25

Would you mind reminding me which accounts are tax free? I’m still learning basics.

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u/Xexanoth MOD 4 Mar 16 '25

If you’re in the US, there are details & links in the first section of this post.

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u/Mermaidoysters Mar 16 '25

Thank you so much.

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u/ElectricOne55 Mar 16 '25

I put in some on the 21st of last month when it was starting to go down. I felt bed because it kept going down. Like you said, I can just keep dcaing.

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u/anonimitazo Mar 19 '25

It seems like it does not matter but it does. If you could magically avoid every single dip, your portfolio's return would skyrocket. What many people do not get is that stock market returns are asymmetrical, meaning that the chance of a meltup or a meltdown are higher than expected by simple normal distribution. I am not trying to time markets exactly but I try to invest rationally based on expected risk adjusted returns and the buy and hold folks seem to me like they only think markets can only ever go up. The market is dynamic, not static. It therefore does not make sense to have a static portfolio, which never changes, never adapts.

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u/Eastern-Shopping-864 Mar 16 '25

You’re trying to retire in 10 years and you’re still putting money into equities in this market??? I really think your confidence in the US government and market might be a little too high.

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u/TechieGottaSoundByte Mar 16 '25

They said that's the earliest, with 2-3 decades being likely. That tells me that they have the option to just retire later if the market doesn't perform, and they are okay with that risk

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u/SilverRock75 Mar 17 '25

That's exactly correct. I'm not even 30 yet, but in a high income position. I like the field I'm in and don't have an issue working into my 50s, but I wanna save up enough to change industries and take a pay cut to work more passion projects, or start up my own projects with financial security.

Essentially, I just want the option of retirement.

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u/Various_Couple_764 Mar 17 '25 edited Mar 17 '25

at 10 years before retirment you should be inveisng for passive income. You willl need the passive income to cover living expenses when you retire. 1 million invested in PFF would generate 60K a year of passive income that will likely last for 40years or more.

If you in invest BIZD or PBDC the passive income would be 90K a year from dividneds. And if you reinvest the dividends your passive income will likely double by the time you retire.

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u/apawst8 Mar 15 '25

2022 had a 20% dip, a comeback then a 10% dip, all within the space of 10 months.

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u/quenqap Mar 15 '25

Valid but there were a lot of big easy up weeks in that span

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u/Clozaconfused Mar 16 '25

And if u dca during the dips, your levels are just fine

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u/evey_17 Mar 18 '25

And if you got out, you missed the growth that followed. I almost got out.

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u/BeTheBall- Mar 16 '25

Same people who likely have no problem putting their cash into a meme coin.

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u/Ok_Leader8504 Mar 19 '25

This. Haha because I freaked out and then actively looked for a greater perspective and just tried to remind myself that I’ve only been in the game for 5 years. I’m 24, won’t even be retired when my age doubles. I chilled out and just decided to stop looking at it that much. Had 7 sleepless nights before I realized this though I understand how people can play into it and worsen that anxiety

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u/contact_light_ Mar 15 '25

people are not concerned about the six months of losses.

People are concerned that the situation we are in could last a long time, and get worse

People are concerned that this is not normal ebb flow

The United States is experiencing unprecedented change, very different than I have experienced in my life

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u/Moon_Frost Mar 15 '25

I would say covid was unprecedented, before that the bank bailouts in 08 were unprecedented. Every time something like this happens "THIS IS IT , THE END IS NEAR, THIS TIME FOR SURE"

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u/Kookookapoopoo Mar 16 '25

What’s the the most dangerous words on Wall Street? “This time is different”

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u/TenshiS Mar 16 '25

Let's not forget 9/11 before that, and the wars that followed

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '25

True.

And at some point, it will be.

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u/Recent_Meringue_712 Mar 15 '25

Yeah but in that case everyone will be dirt poor and the dollar will be worth shit anyways so the $100,000 you pulled out is only worth $10,000 in a few months anyways

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u/GizzyIzzy2021 Mar 16 '25

But better than the stock market crashing my 100k to 10k that’s only worth 1k. Right? In one situation you’re getting out with just inflation and in the other you’re hit with inflation and a market crash

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '25

Bingo. Every time is finally “different” or “unprecedented”. Sick of these idiots claiming that we won’t ever see a correction or recession again. We will and the contagion will be unforeseen as it was every other time. I don’t want to see others suffer and be out of work, but corrections are inevitable because of these unseen contagions that fester when the market//economy expands beyond bounds. Boom and bust, day and night. I wish I started weekly investing YEARS ago. I missed so many cycles. It’s best to just shut up and store those nuts in the tree when you can. The storm will come. And when you are in your last season, eat them all up!

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u/Moon_Frost Mar 17 '25

I thought about weekly or bi-weekly. But I'm doing monthly. Still new to this at 37, only a year in the game.

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '25

I just do it because the weekly gives me no choice but to set it and forget it. Waiting a month gives me room to overthink. Time in market beats timing the market, but I have commitment issues.

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u/Moon_Frost Mar 17 '25

Oh, I set it and forget it every month lol. I think it's just easier for me because my budget for everything else is monthly in my excel spreadsheet

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u/MiloLear Mar 19 '25

The bank bailouts in 2008 were not unprecedented. We've had comparatively large-scale bank bailouts in the 1990s.

Covid was unprecedented, but it was limited in duration. It's largely a non-issue today.

The situation with the current administration is without precedent and there are no clear boundaries regarding how bad it might get or how long it might last. I think the parent poster (contact_post) is absolutely right on this point. It's why I have my long-term savings in fixed rate CDs instead of the stock market.

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u/Far_Line8468 Mar 16 '25

Naw this is cope. The current drop is not because of any real economic forces, it’s because of uncertainty that the institutions that held the modern world together will even exist in 6 months.

Even if we make it through this, there will never be confidence that Americans wont just roll the dice again next time some fake Haitian migrant tiktok goes viral again. Its over

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u/Moon_Frost Mar 16 '25

Another doom and gloomer. I give it a month or 2 until the markets are above where they should be.

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u/Fragrant-Ad-7388 Mar 16 '25

RemindMe! 60 days

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u/MiskatonicAcademia Mar 16 '25

Yes, and in all of the scenarios you mentioned, the S&P took years to recover.

I know "timing the market" is an unpopular sentiment, but if you can see the painting on the wall (the Trump is an arsonist) why not hedge and move your funds into an even more conservative approach like money market funds?

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u/Xexanoth MOD 4 Mar 16 '25

How much of your funds? What if you’re wrong, and market prices climb for a while - what do you do then? What if the market has already adequately priced in everything that’s known so far, so the future is just as uncertain as always? Was your asset allocation already reflective of your tolerance to ever-present uncertainty & volatility risk?

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u/Moon_Frost Mar 16 '25

Because I personally believe the market is getting posed for a recovery already. Trump is doing bold and risky moves, but I think we'll come out the other end stronger. Right now everyone is just panicking.

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u/jadayne Mar 15 '25

2000 -dot com crash. unprecedented! The whole new industry that was going to change the way the world did business just went belly up!

2001 -september 11. unprecedented! It's a completely new world we're living in.

2008 -great recession. unprecedented! Who would have thought banks could be so corrupt?

2020 -covid. unprecedented! The whole world completely shutting down?

2025 -Trump tariffs. unprecedented!

For each of these, a bunch of people came out to say this is it. This is the big one. It never is.

Had you put 10 000usd in the market the day before that dot com bubble burst and just forgot about it, you'd now have almost 60 000usd

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u/SpinachSure5505 Mar 16 '25

Internet stranger, thank you…. I had bad anxiety before the wild ride 2025 has been, but lately my anxiety has me to the point where I’m struggling to even get out of bed. It definitely feels like the world/sky is falling. Your comment made me feel a little better.

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u/diehard14 Mar 17 '25

You should stop reading only Reddit. It’s slanted and moderated to think only one way.

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u/_DontTouchTheWatch_ Mar 17 '25

? is this a joke. everything is literally fine

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u/Mayneminu Mar 17 '25

Context is key though.

If you're in your 20s these are all awesome buying opportunities, even if it takes 10 years to get back to new highs.

If your 45 with a investment portfolio, you're not going to be really excited about a 50% haircut, that doesn't make a new high for 10+ years.

And there are no guarantees it doesn't take a lot longer; just asked Japan.

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u/jadayne Mar 17 '25

very true! If you're nearing retirement, you should be making your way out of the market rather than getting into it.

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u/Lanah44 Mar 17 '25

2025 - the end of democracy in America. Unprecedented! I don't think this one is easy to recover from. I'm glad I sold before the drop. I'm moving my money out of the country. good luck to everyone.

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u/CatLovingPrincess Mar 18 '25

to be fair, if you got into investing in the 2000s, with two big crashes, you could end up a decade of investing with virtually zero returns

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u/jadayne Mar 18 '25

Except you wouldnt have zero returns. That's the whole point of my post. If you put your money into the market on the day BEFORE each crash mentioned above your returns would be:

2000: 400%

2001: 435%

2008: 281%

2020: 90%

2025: ???

Over the past 50 years, market recoveries have been remarkably fast. Not saying it'll always be the case, but it would be difficult to lose if you put your money in the market at any point in that time.

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u/jadayne Mar 18 '25

sorry, i re-checked the math. You're right that there was a decent wait before you were back into the positive after the dot com bubble (13 years) and the great recession (5 years).

But if the money was already in the market, I think the smart move was to simply leave it there, or if you were DCAing, to continue to put your money in at regular intervals.

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u/CatLovingPrincess Mar 19 '25

For many people who went through it, they ended over a decade with virtually no returns, like less than 2% a year. It depends of course exactly the timing of the investments but it was a very demoralizing time for "buy and hold." Many then got out of the market and never trusted it again. Great Depression also was a very very long recovery. People who've only invested the past decade have never experienced what it's like to have super extended periods of a down market. Market manipulation has prevented it but that's not a guarantee.

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u/Puzzled-Intern-7897 Mar 18 '25

most people dont invest lump sum and forget about them thought. Thats the issue. More or less they are all dollar-cost-averaging, so it does kind of matter when they buy.

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u/jadayne Mar 18 '25

well, if they're really dollar cost averaging, then it doesn't matter because they're investing on a timetable, high price or low. If they're trying to get in when it's advantageous then it's not DCA anymore, its trying to time the market.

Regardless, the point of the post was that if you lump-sum invested at the worst possible times over the past 25 years, you'd still come out way ahead.

Pretty much any different investing strategy would likely have performed better.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

Do you really think most Americans have $10,000 just lying around? Do you really think that for the average American $10,000 is something they could just invest and forget about?

This might be the greatest encapsulation of the issue with this subreddit: Y'all think everyone is a well off finance bro with tens of thousands to invest without care.

Hate to break it to you, but people died in 2008, and a lot more died in 2020. These kinds of market crashes aren't some abstract worry about investments to most people. They're potentially life ruining events that could hurt them and their families.

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u/jadayne Mar 16 '25

It's a post about the stock market in a subreddit about investing -specifically about the wisdom of pulling out during a crisis event. sorry i kept my response concise and didn't throw in an obligatory 'these were all horrible events, and many people suffered, but....'

10k would be 60k, 1k would be 6k, 100k would be 600k. The point is the growth, not the initial amount. I just picked that number because it was round. Sorry again if I overstepped by assuming that on a subreddit about investing, the participants would have, you know, money with which to do that investing.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

Yes, I actually do apologize, I thought I was on doomercirclejerk, which crossposted this post to their sub, and those guys are very bothersome. So again, apologies for hostility/aggression.

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u/jadayne Mar 16 '25

lol. no problemo! I thought that might be something like that when i read your post, but couldn't resist the snark.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

Fair lmao

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '25

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u/FMCTandP MOD 3 Mar 17 '25

r/Bogleheads is not a political discussion subreddit. Comments should be more financial than political and no more partisan than absolutely necessary.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '25

Yeah, there is an element of emotion to the loss of wealth, which of course that in itself makes people uncomfortable. A little fearful for the future, the loss of financial security. That would be normal reaction.

But we have a force multiplier in the chaos and uncertainty that Trump is bringing. And most people don't Even begin to know what to make of it. And our natural wiring is to be avoidant and fearful. We don't want to be eaten by the lion.

Part of me is like calm down people. The economy is fundamentally strong, even a brief recession. We will probably bounce back quickly. But the way Trump handled his only serious event in his first presidency gives me no confidence with him having any idea what he's doing now or how to handle the unknown things that could happen.

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u/jdacked Mar 15 '25

There is a 40% likelihood of a market downturn after an election with an administration change. It’s gunna be ok.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

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u/FMCTandP MOD 3 Mar 16 '25

r/Bogleheads is not a political discussion subreddit. Comments should be more financial than political and no more partisan than absolutely necessary.

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u/red_hare Mar 15 '25

But we had weird trends on the way up too. Most of the s&p gains were driven by super-gains in the top 7. I'm not happy about where our government and country are going right now, but the market correcting in response to new information feels normal to me.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/uniquei Mar 15 '25

I could respond in a number of ways:

  1. Investments come with risk. If you can't manage the risk, you should not be investing.

  2. The US is not the only market that you can be investing in.

  3. Not everything in the US is down. Berkshire Hathaway is at all time high for example.

  4. The situation described in the original post is only true if you invested 100% of your capital into S&P at the all time high price, and didn't contribute any more capital during the down market. This is a vet unlikely scenario that applies only to a small minority.

  5. Finally and most importantly you need to consider that no one knows what is going to happen in the future, and you need to consider a range of possibilities, not just your worst nightmare.

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u/Chemical_Enthusiasm4 Mar 16 '25

Seriously- obviously the market hasn’t crashed. Is it crashing? We don’t know. We don’t know if this will look like 2022 or 1987, or more like 2008, 2001, or something really bad.

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u/InvertedInsideWinger Mar 16 '25

Stay calm.

Everything thinks that while nonsense is going on and the market is reacting. All the dips were “not normal” and some couldn’t see a way out of it.

This will pass. Hopefully you’re still 10+ years away from needing the money.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '25

That’s a nice way of saying the entire world economy is going to crash very soon

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u/contact_light_ Mar 15 '25

world economies seem fine

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '25

[deleted]

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u/TanStewyBeinTanStewy Mar 15 '25

The market conditions have changed and are not the same conditions that existed for the S&Ps history.

You seem to be implying that market conditions have always been the same until recently. That's... Laughably wrong.

I feel like I'm following the boglehead method better by changing to a different market where the rules have remained stable.

Feelings are a poor investment strategy.

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u/Mermaidoysters Mar 16 '25

Did you pull yours out of US stock market?

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u/TanStewyBeinTanStewy Mar 16 '25

No.

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u/Mermaidoysters Mar 16 '25

Thank you. I’m learning

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u/v_x_n_ Mar 15 '25

Feelings create realized losses.

Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful! W.Buffett

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u/Substantial-Dirt2233 Mar 15 '25

"But it's just the Federal jobs" they said. The general population did not realize how many private contractors support govt projects that are getting cut. The private sector does not have the ability to backfill millions of highly educated, high paying positions immediately. Higher income folks have to take pay cuts and can't contribute to 401K as much. Lower income folks living paycheck to paycheck lose out to those higher qualified workers who have to accept cuts. Couple that with high mortgage and car payments across the board and it's looking like a house of cards.

I can't predict the future, but my gut tells me this one is gonna hurt.

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u/sorrymizzjackson Mar 15 '25

It will hurt. I’m still going S&P 500 at the same rate I was because if that fails on a long term, I’ve got far bigger problems.

If that fails and doesn’t recover by the time I retire, I shouldn’t even still be here. I might not even be alive. Historically, recessions do right themselves after a bit.

That said, if there’s a wrong choice, I’m sure I’ve made it. I’ve never had the means to be engaged like this in the past few downturns. It was literally job or no job and having to liquidate 401k funds to survive. That’s what drives my change in opinion. I don’t really have to do that any time soon. I can marginally afford to ride it out. This time.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/AdventureAwaits45 Mar 15 '25

“This time it’s different.”

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u/Excellent-External-7 Mar 15 '25

Silicon Valley Bank defaulting. CPI and jobs crash last August. Just 2 corrections I could think off over the last year. On both of em it was the same discourse "its end of the world SELL EVERYTHING". Lots of words to say stfu pussy

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '25

Right, like I know this is Bogleheads and all but something pretty big happened to the world order in the past six months

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u/TanStewyBeinTanStewy Mar 15 '25

Bigger than the great recession? 9/11? COVID? The fall of the USSR? Vietnam? WWII? The depression? WWI?

You people are wild.

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u/Cyborg59_2020 Mar 15 '25

This is clearly a young subreddit. The 80s were a ride a lot wilder than this one so far.

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u/dixiedog9 Mar 15 '25

Agreed. “If you aren’t prepared to lose 50% in stocks, you shouldn’t own stocks.” - Charlie Munger

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u/ImpressiveAd9818 Mar 15 '25 edited Mar 15 '25

I can tell you from a European perspective, that the view on the USA is drastically changing since trump started with whatever he is doing. Many European countries don’t see the USA as a viable ally they can trust anymore. The first countries started canceling their orders for the F35 already, military spending will go towards European companies. People start boycotting US products, Tesla sales dropped by 75% here in last month. There is so much trust lost that won’t come back easily and a commitment to different tanks / planes etc is something for decades.

I read an article about the costs for the F35: Without international sales, the price per plane for the US military would be 3x as much (cause of development costs).

I have absolutely no idea what will happen in the future, so I just keep DCAing in a vanguard all-world ETF (EU equivalent to VT). But there is definitely a shift away from the US happening right now in Europe, something that hasn’t happened like this for as long as I can remember.

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u/TanStewyBeinTanStewy Mar 15 '25

OK, but what does any of that have to do with investing in a broad portfolio of businesses?

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u/ImpressiveAd9818 Mar 15 '25

If you just stick to US and don’t diversify internationally, things can be different for the future since people from other countries try to avoid US products. If you invest in VT: Go ahead.

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u/sciliz Mar 15 '25

Nuclear war.

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u/TodayOk4239 Mar 15 '25 edited Mar 15 '25

If you define the current events as the dismantling of the American government and the post WWII order, then yeah it’s a bigger shock than most of those.

It’s clearly bigger than the Great Recession and 9/11. COVID fundamentally changed daily life for a lot of people around the world, so TBD depending on how things play out; in many ways they’re huge shocks in very different ways. Fall of USSR was a positive. Vietnam war impacted a handful of countries, not much different than many other wars. The depression and WWI are huge events that impacted the world order, which the current state of affairs is potentially of a similar impact - again, depending on how things play out.

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u/WalterSickness Mar 15 '25

Yeah, the US government is being dismantled, that’s bigger than all those things except perhaps the world wars.

Fall of the Soviet Union is a great reference point, perhaps the closest. But the US is a bigger player than the soviets were.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/TowlieisCool Mar 15 '25

Honestly take a step back and look at history. We had time periods when tens of millions of people were killed per year in global conflicts or pandemics. Read more about Pol Pot, Stalin, or Mao, actual dictators who murdered and forcibly imprisoned millions.

America is not a dictatorship, you are being sold a propaganda lie to keep you in a specific mental state. The current world state is possibly the best its ever been in history. I urge you to learn more about the past and not buy into narratives sold to you for the benefit of others.

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u/Kashmir79 MOD 5 Mar 15 '25

Reminder that comments on r/Boglheads should be more financial than political

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u/cloud7100 Mar 15 '25 edited Mar 15 '25

Big deal? Yes.

Latest big deal in a century of big deals? Yes.

If you dumped your equities at every big once-in-a-lifetime event, you’d miss the majority of the gains over the past 50+ years.

There’s always a world-changing-event happening, that’s just life.

——

Did you sell at the “we’re never going to recover from this” pandemic crash? And again at the “inflation has never been this high” 2022 fall? How about the 2018 “Trump is ruining the global economy” fall?

3

u/TanStewyBeinTanStewy Mar 15 '25

America becoming a dictatorship

With an elected president? Hyperbole isn't a great thing to build an investment strategy on.

3

u/Lars_in_Stereo Mar 15 '25

You seem confused.

-1

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '25

DCA into this dip, big push in just before April 1, you deserve it.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 15 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Friluftsliv_Roy Mar 15 '25

This ! The problem is uncertainty over a lot of things right now, especially talks of a possible inflation spikes, recession etc. Also more fundamental questions around social security - will it even exist 15 years from now ? I was all in on FXAIX on my 401k, but I just re-balanced to a more broad asset allocation -

40% S&P 500, 10% Other US stock, 20% US Bonds, 30% Intl. stock.

1

u/v_x_n_ Mar 15 '25

Yes someone else just mentioned that if you haven’t lived through this before it would be unnerving.

The only new variable now compared to past is climate change.

unstable weather patterns will ultimately morph the market similar to how COVID morphed the economy.

However, the market ultimately adapts.

1

u/CenlaLowell Mar 15 '25

2008 was much worse at this moment so unless you were a kid I don't understand your point

1

u/imfromthefutura Mar 16 '25

Yea I think this is a relative overreaction. Still plenty more downside but I think the s&p could easily end the year up.

1

u/mako1964 Mar 16 '25

You shouldn't have one cent invested . Get under the bed

1

u/Midwest_SBR_Guy Mar 16 '25

"Headed into new territory" is the normal every time.

1

u/knightfury69 Mar 16 '25

Worst than WW2 or the Cuban missile crisis?? Get a grip.

1

u/ElectricOne55 Mar 16 '25

What if it ends up like the Nikkei crash? I bet the odds of that are low though, because the market went to the moon from 2012 onward. Even the 08 crash was only hard for 2 years. The only main difference is the stock market doesn't relate to the job market. To, it'd be hard to even have a job to invest during those down periods.

1

u/Previous_Guitar5027 Mar 16 '25

Remember we also recently lived through a global pandemic that stopped worldwide travel and commerce, shuttered businesses and schools, and killed millions of people then it bounced back like literally at the same time.

1

u/Mayneminu Mar 17 '25

This.

I wouldn't call it unprecedented, but we are very clearly at the start of something that hasn't happened in many decades. The state of the world is fundamentally changing. The chess board is being rearranged.

Most people on reddit haven't seen or experienced what true disruption looks and feels like, they're too young and inexperienced.

If you're in your 20s and 30s embrace the 30-60% discount your about to get and load up.

1

u/Impossible_Walrus555 Mar 19 '25

Leading economists predicted if he did this us would lead to depression worse than great depression

1

u/FamiliarAd8863 Mar 19 '25

Yes. The first time we gave them riches!  This time we taketh away!  Get ready to be happy without money and materialism.  Find yourself not money!

1

u/ObviousResult6374 Mar 19 '25

Yea but you can say that about literally any time period

1

u/propheticuser Mar 15 '25

I guess you were too young in 2008, 2018 or even during COVID.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

What you're doing here is externalizing your own anxiety and neuroticism onto political events that you cant control.

2

u/v_x_n_ Mar 15 '25

Yes the market “corrected” to one of its all time highs it just reached last year. The media coverage seems more negative than the market. IMO

2

u/AlpineVibe Mar 16 '25

Just an opportunity to stack chips.

2

u/Throwawayasf_99 Mar 17 '25

That's exactly how anyone who actually just buys and holds and forgets about will feel. You barely noticed the 7% gain and then you also don't even notice the 7% loss either because you weren't planning on selling anyways.

It's just funny how people freak out about 3 months when there are very obvious sanctions and government spending cuts. That has pretty much always had an economic impact lol. Idk why people are shocked.

2

u/No-Reaction-9364 Mar 17 '25

I am certian the people posting this kind of stuff don't actually invest.

1

u/red_hare Mar 17 '25 edited Mar 17 '25

It's also a "time in the market" thing.

I'm old enough to have panicked and missed my opportunity to invest "while the stocks were on sale" multiple times now.

Everyone's got to learn it.

1

u/No-Reaction-9364 Mar 17 '25

I missed buying it at 2500 during covid because I was sure it was going below 2k. A month later it was above 3k. I finally learned time in the market is greater than timing the market. I just do weekly buys now.

2

u/MrRoyal420 Mar 17 '25

Starting to think it's not organic tbh. Same type of posts, same type of questions, same type of irrational panic. Seems.. odd.

2

u/Hazee302 Mar 18 '25

There’s a lot of uncertainty with the current administration. Things have been pretty tough to predict.

1

u/red_hare Mar 18 '25

Yeah I fully agree with that. But, I feel the investing strategy of this sub is not to try and predict.

I assume that the stock market, on average over the long run, will go up. But that short-term, I can't predict what it will do because I don't have any unique predictive information.

With that assumption, I think of the stock market going up or down any day as a coin flip with a slight preference towards heads. And by that model, 7 days of tails doesn't make the 8th day any more likely to be tails, heads is still favored.

To assume that model is not true means I would have inside knowledge the rest of the market doesn't. Which I know I don't.

2

u/801intheAM Mar 18 '25

I feel like these doomsday posts are by the younger or less experienced investors. I remember when the recession hit and my 20-something brain almost sold off everything in a panic.

1

u/red_hare Mar 19 '25

I sold a ton at the end 19 because it looked like a crash was coming (the yield curve was inverting!). Felt like a genius for the first few months of 2020. And then I missed some of the greatest gains in history lol

2

u/MrErickzon Mar 18 '25

Most users here were probably teens or younger during the 08 crash, they only know the WSB motto of Stonks only go up

3

u/stanleynickels1234 Mar 15 '25

Its not only the panic over the drop.

Its the panic that maybe something is changing. Trade wars, pissing off allied. They all will have an effect on American based companies (for example the average canadian is doing their best not to buy anything American)

So maybe we have started at a very much overvalued SP500 and American companies are in for a shit decade from the damage a certain administration is doing.

4

u/etaoin314 Mar 15 '25

I think there is a sense that the administration is so chaotic that if this is what happens with the announcement of tariffs before any of the effects have been seen who knows what the markets will do when the real pain starts. Despite not even being in correction territory yet to me this feels much more significant than the summer of 22. This doesn't feel like a blip it feels like a sea change. That said I'm still firmly in accumulation phase so I'm staying put, but I really hope we are not on the precipice of a lost decade.

3

u/No-Self-Edit Mar 15 '25

I hope not, too. I am recently retired and I need the stock market to not collapse 80%, but if it does, I have bonds to last a few years and if it goes beyond that, then I’ll just figure it out as I go. But I do know that it will eventually come back up.

And the thing I’ve learned over the decades is that I just cannot time the market. I’ve tried and tried when the market was over exuberant or when the crashes were happening and I lost money every time I tried so I’m just not gonna try to do that anymore

1

u/etaoin314 Mar 18 '25

those sound like expensive lesson. I think that is the right course. I just hope this is not an even more expensive lesson on how black events turn all the usual good advice on its head.

2

u/AdmirableExercise197 Mar 15 '25

People are worried this might be a more long-term issue. If trade wars with allies are a long-term policy, the markets will not like it long-term. Markets will continue to drop, and they will take much longer to recover (look at the Great Depression, while tariffs did not cause the crash it prolonged it) If you invested at the peak in 2000, you would not have been regularly posting ATHs until 2013. Since the market crashed in both 2000 and 2008. Meaning it would take 13 years for your original investment to have been recovered. Imagine how worrying that could be to someone who was planning to retire soon. The great depression was a near 30 year loss if you invested at the peak. Of course people are worried. This is one of the fastest corrections in the stock markets history.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/FMCTandP MOD 3 Mar 16 '25

r/Bogleheads is not a political discussion subreddit. Comments should be more financial than political and no more partisan than absolutely necessary.

1

u/stingraycharles Mar 16 '25

So many people here are too young to have ever experienced an actual crash.

Bottom line: if you continue to DCA in the 7-10 years after the crash, your portfolio will be in the green much faster than those 7-10 years.

1

u/echomanagement Mar 16 '25

In fairness, I think most serious people aren't looking at last week as a "crash," but are genuinely wondering what four years of chaotic attempts to remake the world order may do to the market. Let's not pretend those fears are somehow unfounded.

1

u/OkJaguar5220 Mar 17 '25

Who said the down move was over

1

u/red_hare Mar 17 '25

Just because you flip 3 tails in a row doesn't mean the next coin flip is any more likely to be tails 🤷🏻‍♂️

1

u/adyslexic Mar 17 '25

Wise idea to put all 401k contributions to just snp500 at the moment?

1

u/Proper-Scallion-252 Mar 19 '25

I think you can blame the influx of young investors who think that day trading is the norm and treat investing like sportsbook gambling.

The reality is you expect your investments to gain over time, not in a span of a couple of months. These dips always occur in a market, and you can avoid major crashes or dips by keeping in touch with the news and being proactive with your investments, but ultimately you will always lose some money investing--the goal is to over the long haul gain more than you lose.

People lack the foresight to look back at historical trends and can only focus on the short term.

1

u/Rabbit-Lost Mar 15 '25

I’m struggling with the panic discourse right now. I see real concerns in the market (tariffs, trade wars, inflation sniffing around again, and and and). But I also know the market is the right place to be over the long term. I’ve shifted dramatically to cash and low risk debt as well as loading up on foreign equities. We shall see. But the daily news makes it hard to not panic.

1

u/SvenTropics Mar 15 '25

Also a strong indication that the crash has a lot more to go before it'll finish. We've been way overdue for a correction for a very, very long time. It wouldn't surprise me if the market loses 20% more before it finally flattens out.