“Finally there came the awful day of reckoning for the bulls and the optimists and the wishful thinkers and those vast hordes that, dreading the pain of a small loss at the beginning, were now about to suffer total amputation-without anesthetics.”
This quote appears in this slide which I will show my students tomorrow. It is indeed unfortunate that many older persons, and especially retirees, are having their financial lives threatened by the current declining market. This is why I publish this blog and teach young people what I wish someone had taught me at their ages.
Thank your sir. Hope I found your blog earlier . Your presentation on Traderlion is excellent, i’m trying to follow that.
Thank you Dr. Wish. Yours is the only stock newsletter I follow. I very much appreciate the straight talk. Keep up the good work!
I was lucky, I got out nine months ago. Not because I was smart or well informed, it was because I had it all in one ticker (huge rookie mistake) and my lizard brain was triggered by the chop. It got to be unbearable, too much stress, so I pulled the plug. Fortunately only a very small loss. Since then I’ve been paper trading only.
So, why am I telling you this? Because until a few minutes ago, after reading this post, it finally dawned on my that this is a bear market and its not likely to change anytime soon. For nine months I played the “oh I’m happy, this looks like a rally” game, only to see it turn into a bear market rally, and fizzle, only to be followed by an additional and deeper downturn.
For nine months I’ve been taking a shellacking in my paper trading. For nine months I’ve been harboring hopes that the bear market is over, only to be disappointed. This is my first bear market and I think that it’s time for me to go fishing and step away from the market, to mentally disengage and wait for a better market. Pining over every twitch of the SPY does not seem helpful or fun.
Thank you for snapping this into sharp relief for me. I will of course continue waiting for and reading your posts.
Thanks again.
Keep observing, thinking and learning. There is plenty of time to get back in when a new bull market is confirmed. In a new bull market you will have months to prosper.