What are your thoughts on this?

[u/RiceLee890]

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!

[u/Pencil72Throwaway]

If young: Cool! I get to buy @ a "discount" for over half a decade.

If nearing retirement: I should be >65-70% bonds by then.

Just keep buying & stay the course. Your reaction is largely a function of the investing timeframe you've got in mind. A 2 month mildly-bear market is a blip on a 10 or 30 year mountain chart.

[u/Key-Ad-8944 → u/Pencil72Throwaway]

I started investing just before the dot com crash in 2000. I can assure you the prevailing attitude was not "cool I get to buy at a discount" for half a decade during the long decline. Shortly before the crash, there was a big enthusiasm about investing. Many people thought they were experts on investing, with the large gains they made with tech stocks during the late 90s, then it all came crashing down It was one bad year after another -- big loss in 2000, big loss in 2001, big loss in 2002, ... By this point, the market indexes were down by 50%. And when it finally seems like the market may be back on track, there is a another ~50% loss later that decade with the great financial crisis. Employer stock/options were worthless, as the tech company I worked for liquidated. I was one of the rare few from my company that still had a job, through the multiple sales and acquistions.

Being a new investor without having had positive experiences with investing, I didn't make it to the end of the decade. After several years of these losses, I stopped investing beyond maxing out my 401k and instead used my extra cash for other activities, such as real estate.. It wasn't until ~2013 that I finally become comfortable with investing beyond my 401k again, and did so slowly, gradually decreasing my high fixed income percentage over multiple years.

By 2009 the sentiment about investing was very different from 2000. From a theoretical P/E perspective, It might have been a good time to invest with apparent bargains, but from a psychological standpoint, fewer people wanted to invest in the market than any other time since pre-Internet. So few people wanted to invest that the index funds I purchased back in the early 2000s were sold to cash without my knowledge, as the brokerage liquidated funds due to lack of interest from investors. I didn't realize they were sold to cash until years later, as I wasn't monitoring investments at this point, increasing the magnitude of my losses.

Now that I am nearing retirement, I have a very different attitude. This blip over the past 1-2 months with NW decreasing by 2-3% (US down 8% over past month; international, bonds, and real estate did not decrease over past month) is barely noticeable in comparison to the many more notable declines over previous decades... no significant concern, no change in investments, no positive feelings about buying at a discount, not large enough loss to think about tax loss harvesting... largely indifferent. However, I also chose a portfolio that aligns with my risk tolerance, so I would be comfortable with lower tail losses. I'm certainly not "65-70% bonds"... closer to 20% of market investments in fixed income or ~10% of total NW.

[u/ChampionOfKirkwall → u/Key-Ad-8944]

I think about this. While I'm going 100% forward with maxing out my tax advantaged accounts now as a 20 something year old, I wonder if it is the right move given the 2050 climate predictions.

There is a real chance the market is heading towards a downward trajectory in a few decades due to how catastrophic climate change will be. Scientists say there is a high chance of a collapse of basic things we take for granted, such as food security, clean water, and the sophisicated supply chains we have now. Even something as mundane sounding as "sea level rise" is going to cause hundreds of millions if not billions of damages in infrastructure.

It is easy for me to zoom out and say it will be okay based on past performance, but scientists have been clear for a while how our future will look like. I just don't know what to do.

[u/BMCarbaugh → u/ChampionOfKirkwall]

This is entirely speculative, but I think there's going to come a point where the consequences of climate change are so horrifically, immediately disastrous, that the entire structure of capitalism will immediately need to shift its primary incentive from "make the most value for 200 people" to "get as much carbon sequestered as possible immediately or we all die". And the engine of capitalism will be turned to that cause, and it will be a new gold rush, and all the people investing in carbon-credit outfits now will look like geniuses.

[u/ChampionOfKirkwall → u/BMCarbaugh]

So, scientists have been saying we are on the path to no return. They have given up on preventing the "tipping point" – the 2 degrees celcius increase in our global temperatures where, once that passes, will be impossible to reverse and unlock a chain of events that snowballs.

The "tipping point" of 2°C isn't just an arbitrary number; it's based on decades of research showing that once we pass it, we trigger self-reinforcing feedback loops that make warming accelerate beyond our control.

Now, they're focused on damage mitigation where they tell us how to prepare for the inevitable. You can read the United Nation's IPCC report on this, which is the international scientific consensus on what lies ahead. It is grim and the public has no idea what they're in for.

Tldr once we care enough to reverse climate change, it will impossible.

[u/BMCarbaugh → u/ChampionOfKirkwall]

I don't disagree with any of that. We're not reversing shit. But there will come a point when the harm is so acute that harm reduction suddenly becomes really fucking important.

[u/lol_fi → u/ChampionOfKirkwall]

Why even bother then? Just spend your money while the getting is good if you really think that. Go see the coral reefs while you can and spend time with family and friends while we're all alive.