Happy Anniversary! The Bull Market turned 7 today!
That’s right, we’ve reached the 7 year point in the current bull market. It’s been a very bumpy ride (it always is), but old Mr. Market has continued to chug along.
Inevitably during these last 7 years pundits, professionals, the media, your bus driver, etc. have seen the signs of the oncoming bear market or the “double dip” recession. They’ve been wrong up to this point, and the correct investor action over these last 7 years was to be long stocks.
Corrections and volatility are a normal part of the market cycle. When volatility and market corrections influence an investor it usually leads to bad underperformance.
I believe that Warren Buffett said that “the stomach is much more important than the mind when investing.”
I leave you with a little tidbit of data, the Vanguard World ETF (VT) had an average annual return of 14.25% since March 9th 2009 and a cumulative return of 153.38%. The S&P 500 has a cumulative return of 231.23% over the same time period. (I never recommend being 100% US weighted, also this data is 03/09/2009 – 02/29/2016)
