So here we are in late March 2023. After a rough 2022 for the stock market, market shakiness continues, despite an upswing to start out the year.
The ever-present volatility continues to be a slog. Even though I really do appreciate buying shares on discount, I feel like I have had a scratch that has remained un-itched for over a year. This feels kind of stupid as I write it, and yet, being a student of behavioral economics, I know how my brain works: I want to see gains!
Sure, there have been gains… some. Nothing like in my first years investing, prior to 2022. Maybe I was spoiled.* Don’t get me wrong: I am fully prepared to pay the price of investing rewards. That price is reward’s evil twin brother, risk. If there were no risk, there would be no reward. It’s when the risks happen that good investors prove their mettle… and get the reward.
I’m confident that we are proving our investing mettle. Yet sometimes it messes with the brain. I know that the answer is just to hold on. I didn’t start investing for the dopamine rush of daily gains. I’m in it for the decades-long gains!
In the meantime, I’ll just have to put on my wise long-term investor hat and wait this one out, recalling the words of George Harrison: “All Things Must Pass.”
So will this.
*No, definitely I was spoiled. Along with everyone else who enjoyed the 2010s bull market.