A week or two ago I was reading a post about retirees and their biggest regrets. One of the regrets was not investing enough and running out of money. There was a lot of fear because with diminishing earning potential, there was a real threat of running out of money.
The people surveyed in the post all wished they had invested more and/or retired later (so they could save and invest more).
Even though I’m many years away from wanting to retire, this post got me thinking. I’d rather learn from the wisdom of others than through my own trials and tribulations if I can help it.
Unpredictability
There’s a lot of unpredictability in this world. We have ideas of what is going to happen, but we really don’t know. Let’s take a look back at the last 100 plus years as an example:
- WWI
- Great Depression
- WWII
- Korean War
- Vietnam War
- Cuban Missile Crisis
- Black Monday
- Gulf War
- Dot Com Bubble
- Great Recession
- COVID
I’m not even including all of the events either, there’s a lot more than the examples listed.
Through It All: Long-Term Investing
No matter the world or domestic events, a behavior that has always provided great benefit is investing. Throughout the last hundred years, someone who invested has been in a much better position than someone who has not.
There have been major ups and downs and scary times, but long-term investing has always provided benefits. Looking back in history, there hasn’t been one time where it was a bad time to be a long-term investor. For example:
- A 20 year-old who began investing right before the start of WWI would have done incredibly well as they reached retirement age.
- An investor who began literally before the Great Depression brought down all values would have recovered and done exceptionally well by retirement age.
- Someone who started investing pre WWII would have done amazingly well after a couple decades.
- A young investor who lost half their money during the Great Recession would have recovered it all and multiplied it less than 15 years later.
The investor has made it through rocky and scary times and I believe will continue to make it through whatever the future holds. Even though the future is unknown and looks scary.
My Opinion
My opinion is to just keep investing. No matter how good or bad the future looks–keep investing. Dollar-cost average and be consistent.
Whatever happens in the future happens. We can’t control world events but we can control our investing behavior today. So control what you can control, and you’ll be in the best financial position possible.
Are you a long-term investor?
