**Disclaimer and note: This article is a microblog intended as food for thought in simple share and snapshot hence digestible character count in form. When you think better you do better, that’s the point.
The billion dollar question to which there’s never a 2 minute or 500 character count answer. Market entry and exit depend on many factors – and today, we’re going to focus on the current market environment. A pandemic affected one.
It’s an obvious statement that market sentiment is subpar (to say the least) with the possibility of a near term rebound – bleak. My longtime standpoint is that returns can be made in any market. That said, not everyone’s investment strategy or risk tolerance and return requirement are designed to withstand what making a market in any market takes – nor is it wise to haphazardly (and unnecessarily) make a market in said conditions when volatility continues to spike.
Back to market timing, there really isn’t such “thing” although there is (yet another topic for another day). The answer to market timing is different for every ROI strategy, sector played and individual (age/risk/what already invested in). Speaking to current market conditions: do you need this money now or when do you need the money you have invested?
If you don’t need to liquidate your portfolio tomorrow (or in the next 9 months as of today), consider not freaking TF out despite your portfolio dipping a possible 25% due to current market activity. The perceived losses have the ability to correct by the time you’d actually choose to sell and take gains ~ unless some of those gains were set to be taken now, before the market sharply sold off. Is what it is. Reminder: Losses are NOT actualized until a sell takes place.
Consider more so WHAT you are invested in and hold strong to the fact that depending on what you’re invested in – you’re likely in the market for a combination of capital appreciation (growth) and earning income from dividends. It takes quite a bit for a company to cut a dividend. Point: Despite your 25% portfolio dip you are STILL earning income.
Also, rather than continuing to torment yourself, look to what stocks are now a buyer’s market trading at a discount. Do you have a defensive game/strategy? Are you taking advantage of arbitrage opportunities? More on that later and more on the buy/sell side for another post because I could go on ALL day but have actual things to do.
Choose to be positive (and realistic) today. We made it through 2007-2009, we can weather this wave.
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