Seems people need more avenues to ramble about their fears than to muse about their hopes …?
<insert witty loss aversion quote here>
Anyway, back on topic:
Today could be the 2nd day in a row where the S&P 500 fell more than -4.5%
This has only happened during some of the worst crashes before.
Here’s what the S&P 500 did next:
I would advise to combine everything in one thread, but change the title. Something like “Investing in 2025” or “Markets in 2025” and do a yearly thread.
Looking forward to those green days 
At this moment I am getting very close to going RED for absolute returns since beginning of investing period ( March 2021) 
I guess when global market crashes close to 20% in CHF terms , it’s expected to wipe out all gains for DCA investors if investment period is not long enough.
SSAC_CHF is dropped to same level as April 2021 & even VT is at similar levels as Aug 2021 now.
Interesting. Checking indices since 2020 give me the following numbers (XIRR):
SP500 8.95%, Dow 5.75%, Nasdaq 13.98%, Russell 2000 1.74%
The I compare the same period with my strategies: dividend 10.63%, momentum 19.67%. My target return is 10% for dividend and 20% for momentum, quiet close, even after this selloff.
That is the disadvantage of index investing. Those indices are mostly momentum strategies, but with many stocks contained that I would not touch with gloves.
But that is probably the only disadvantage, there are a lot of advantages too. I made many costly errors before getting where I am now, that does not happen with ETF.
If you have the AI engine turned on, this search gives quiet a good description of the XIRR function:
I already turned red in a total money invested vs yesterday’s cashout value, and I expect many people to be deeper in the red, however how are these green days helping you or anyone else?
I posted a nice article looking deeper in the “if you lose the X best days…” quote a few days/week back, it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to be thankful for the X best days as they usually cluster in the deepest darkest bears, and goes back to conclude that time in the market really does beat timing the market.
Looking back at my own post history here, I really was tempted to sell all on the 19th of Feb, gut feeling, nerves, no idea. I wish I had. Now that we’re in it there’s no way out without loss than staying.
I would if I knew how to do it, but the problem is any time I try to see a video or read an article it goes from this:
to this
in about 30 seconds.
I think portfolio should grow over time. If it’s red for 20 years and grow 200% in last year that’s great but that would not be very conducive for investing.
I would say it’s natural to expect net positive returns (at all times) after certain years of investing . Maybe the number is close to 6-7 years
Hmmm, it does grow over time, though, either in monetary value or # of shares or both. It depends what you mean by being red for 20 years, you mean being underwater in an absolute, personal money invested basis?
I mean historically that’d only happen if one made a leveraged buy with a lump sum of their whole liquid NW, at the very top of the very worst crises, which is very unrealistic, and never bought again for 20 years, which is also unrealistic. I don’t have the data now, but I’ve seen it showing that even in this sort of scenario one would be breaking even much faster than the index would come back to zero (eg in the dot com + GCF years).
Not saying it’s easy, we need to take the bitter pill for sure. If someone went into investing having done, understood and digested this due diligence, and having sufficient self-awareness then they should feel ok. I personally feel just fine and a few friends where we talk about it feel fine too. Maintaining our personal revenue streams (ie our jobs!) is critical now.
Edit: I see infuriating posts on reddit today and since Wednesday that “time in the market is cope”, “it’s all bullshit, we’ve been scammed”… That’s just lambs to slaughter who got greedy and now got burnt and looking to blame someone else, as humans typically do.
I agree. 10 years if you want to be extra conservative! Edit: that’s why sequence of returns risk is a critical consideration.
You are basing your entire, false, narrative on your personal grievance of not being able to sell your bike. And you complain of being called out? And you flag the comment calling your comments misinformation and whine to the mod about it? You are spreading misinformation. It’s as simple as that. You are spreading an argument that is based on your own personal experience, not on what VAT actually is.
Because you don’t even represent your situation correctly in your own line of argumentation. It wasn’t the VAT that was the problem in your situation. VAT in Spain is 21%. This 200% you are talking about has nothing to do with that. “I really don’t see how anybody cannot understand that” - you don’t see how people can’t understand your 200% ‘VAT’ anecdote? Whatever you claim to have been charged, it actually sounds much more like a tariff than VAT. And the irony is, even if it is VAT, then Spanish sellers in Spain would also be subject to that. So your argument that VAT are like tariffs is still wrong.
It was the cost basis afaiu, custom thinks it was worth more (prob different depreciation rules). In any case it’s a personal anecdote (and yeah VAT can do weird things if you want to do business while not being incorporated) which imo doesn’t represent how VAT works for proper companies.
(Can we move the sub thread elsewhere and maybe close it)
Time in the market really means time in the market. It doesn’t mean “2 years in the market and you’re good”. It means even less “2 months in the market and you’ll beat any active investor”.
It means making sure you don’t need the money under a shortish time horizon (most people seem to consider 10+ years a good horizon for stocks) and staying invested during the good and bad times, because bad times do occur and they do hurt (both psychologically and financially, it’s not unusual for them to happen jointly with difficult economic times).
When we say that stocks are risk assets, it’s because the risk does, actually, exist. And it is for bearing that risk that investors are rewarded with higher returns. If the risk ceases to exist, the returns of stocks should also become akin to those of risk free assets.
I think that’s something we tend to not appreciate enough when we evaluate the value of fixed income in our allocation. We tend to focus on the low yield (especially true in CHF) and not enough on the near certainty (for investment grade bonds) of it being there, and the capital being there at the end of a given period of time.
Over that period of time, the lowish yield of a swiss bond or cash in a savings account can beat the returns of stocks under certain circumstances. It is because it is nearly certain to be there, where stock returns are not, that the returns are so low.
I think current early-ish accumulators are blessed as investors: 2022 allowed us to learn about the risk of bonds. 2020, 2022 and now are exposing us to the risk of stocks. There’s a lot of good learning, self-knowledge and habit forming to get.
Edit: of course, many among us value the higher returns with higher volatiliy over the lower returns with contractual certainty of getting the capital back after a set period of time. That’s fine, we just need to acknowledge that fluctuations do happen and that a long term investing horizon does actually mean long term.
Yes, they use the new value while Switzerland uses the actual value. And of course the VAT is higher in Spain. 21% of the new value was more than I already sold the bike for, so I had to cancel the sell. It is a small example of how VAT for import/export is no different than tariffs.
Agree to a new thread and please no personal attacks or insults, this is against the forum rules. “spreading misinformation” and “whining” are not appropriate words just because your opinion differs somehow and you seem to have no arguments for your case.
I think that’s the part you might want to reflect on and revisit.
This small example 1) doesn’t generalize (companies pay VAT on actual value) 2) is still not the same as tariffs 3) is also due to not being aware of the rules (“21% of the new value was more than I already sold the bike for”), rules for a person importing/exporting vehicles around are hard to navigate (VAT, certificate of conformity, etc.), it’s not just Spain, from what I heard Switzerland is also tricky (I know people who gave up importing a motorbike they had in another country)
Dip for those who followed illiterate kleptocrat, rapist, felon. Top for my:
And a bit of hard data for perma-bulls with cognitive avoidance:
Maybe White House should have listened to you and just implement 25% VAT in US and problem solved
This whole tariff drama was not needed. So much chaos for such a straightforward solution. No country would have complained
With three bear markets in 5 years, I believe many of us have had the fortune to experience atleast two of them. I was not invested in 2020, so I experienced only two.
Personally I have learnt (something I intuitively knew) that 100% equity is not for me. So my plan to stay between 60-65% equities is good for me and I will stick to it.
Yeah. I meant that even though logically it would make sense that market remains flat for 20 years while we are in accumulation phase and then suddenly spike up in the end and we can experience CAGR of 7% but all returns coming after acclimation phase is over.
But the reality is that logic doesn’t work in real life investing because most people will stop investing if there absolute returns are zero or negative
That’s what I meant , I would prefer to be not in RED in absolute sense over my investing horizon. But I also know I need to be in DCA mode for 6-7 years to reach that level that market crashes of 30% won’t wipe out all gains
US companies and consumers surely will like that 
But if he doesn‘t get it now, he never will. This is the most straightforward example of why tariffs and VAT are not the same.
Perfect, everything in one thread.
I just bought clothes for 1.4k in the WE store. Never done that. Maybe it will help the markets to recover?
