Sticking to your financial plan and staying invested is essential, especially during tough times. Sometimes our best role is to help “coach” when those times come. A key in playing that role is that we stress-test your financial plans to provide confidence that it’s on track. To that end, we’ve been averaging weekly email communications to you (a lot for us), and we stand at the ready when you reach out with questions or concerns.
It’s so important to stay invested and on track with your financial plan, even when every bone in your body wants to sell. We’ve already discussed one reason why—markets tend to improve before the news gets better. But here’s where things get even trickier.
Consider an investor that had $500,000 invested at the beginning of the year in U.S. stocks (S&P 500). That investor is down about 3% through June—not a good result, but not terrible, either.
What happens, however, if our investor decided to sell and then missed just the five best days in the first half of 2020? Well, that investor wouldn’t be down only 3%, but instead 33%! Yikes! That’s a pretty incredible difference—$163,838 in this case (we’re trying to show this in the graphic below).
Pause to think about that—just FIVE days in six months made that big of a difference. It’s astonishing, but therein lies the point—to time the markets, one must be insanely good (or lucky) to capture those best days because missing just a few of them can make a huge difference.
Better to simply stay invested!
Disclosures
The information provided is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice and it should not be relied on as such. It should not be considered a solicitation to buy or an offer to sell a security. It does not take into account any investor’s particular investment objectives, strategies, tax status, or investment horizon. You should consult your attorney or tax advisor.
The views expressed in this commentary are subject to change based on market and other conditions. These documents may contain certain statements that may be deemed forward‐looking statements. Please note that any such statements are not guarantees of any future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected. Any projections, market outlooks, or estimates are based upon certain assumptions and should not be construed as indicative of actual events that will occur.
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Jacobson & Schmitt Advisors, LLC (“JSA”) is a registered investment advisor. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where JSA and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure.