Taking a Wider Look at Market Performance
Oxford defines retrospect as a review of past events or period of time.1 At first glance, the 20222-market had what could only be described as bad days. In fact, in the first half of the year, there were whole months where investors experienced the anxiety of dropping indexes. June was especially bad, with the S&P 500 index falling more than 7%.
Financial Analyst, Helen Yang, ran an evaluation of June's decline (considered the worst month in 2022 for investors) to see how it affected long-term performance.2 In the 12 months leading up through June, the S&P 500 lost more than 12% of its value.
Saving for retirement is a marathon, not a sprint. Yang points out that investors with longer timeframes had much less to be unhappy about. An investment in the S&P 500 for the ten years leading up through June 2022 would have had an annualized return of 12.7%. And for planning purposes, 8% is often assumed to be safe.
The only way to benefit from the market's potential gains is to be invested in it, and since no one can predict when those gains will occur, we must accept that by anticipating we will necessarily experience down times. When you have a long-term view, and understand the power of compounding gains where your money goes out and works to grow your wealth, then you can be grateful to be in the market even on those days when your current balance is not going up. It's always a good day when you have that opportunity.
1 https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/
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