It’s an old saying from my Marine Corps days that was uttered, often by the new “boots”, as false motivation and bravado after a hard training evolution…”What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I’m not so sure about that at age 53. But it may hold some truth as it relates to the news cycle and constant bombardment of the next bad thing.
So I went back in time and came up with the things I remember from each year that caused people to say, “I’m worried, I think we should sell out of the market until this blows over.”
2000 Y2K
2001 Anthrax
2002 West Nile virus
2003 SARS
2005 Bird Flu
2006 Ecoli outbreak
2008 The Financial Crisis
2009 Swine Flu
2012 The Mayan Calendar Apocalypse
2013 A nuclear North Korea would cause World War III
2014 Ebola virus
2015 ISIS
2016 ZIKA virus
2020 Coronavirus
However, despite all that, here’s the S&P 500 since 2000…
The truth is, there is always something out there that can cause a sell-off. The key to weathering these events is not trading in and out of the market, but instead having the proper amount of cash so that you don’t have to worry about being right or wrong or trading in and out of the market.
Keep looking forward.
Related: Should You Have FAAMG Stock Concentration or Moderation?