As much as I enjoy the intellectual exercise of researching and writing about financial markets, I find the act of investing can be very unpleasant.
When stocks are up, I worry they’ll go down. And when they’re down, I worry they’ll go lower.
Even when I look back and see the progress my portfolio has made toward my financial goals, I struggle to recall moments where I felt totally sanguine about the money I had at risk. Sure, in hindsight, I’m grateful for how far I’ve come. But my memory of the process is of anything but a smooth ride.
As the stock market set new highs this week, I reflected on this poorly timed, lump-sum purchase I made back on Feb. 18, 2025, when the S&P 500 was at 6,129. That was a day before the market topped and then tumbled 19%. Fortunately, stocks quickly recovered those losses, and I was back to breakeven within a few months. (Read more about that here and here.)
Fast-forward to today. The S&P …
This post was originally published here
