Will Stock Watchers Recover from Trauma?
S&P dip from 6,100 to 5,100 reminiscent of Dickens's "Hard Times"
President Trump’s Tariff Jousting really roiled the financial markets.
Between February 17 and March 31, the S&P dipped from 6,100 to 5,100. During this time I received letters from investment fund managers who lamented and resented the hard times that President Trump had inflicted on the nation.
Trump—the “Bull in the Global-Financial-China Shop”—the “lunatic who is fond of setting tomcats loose in pigeon cages”—was apparently “determined to end seventy-five years of America’s exceptional position in the world,” as one manager (whose portfolio was down 4% for the quarter) exclaimed.
The situation reminded me of the plight of the mill workers in Charles Dickens’s 1854 novel, Hard Times, or the Joad family in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.
I hope that fund managers and their clients are okay and will recover from the psychological trauma of their portfolios being down for almost six weeks.
As old Royal Navy sailors used to say when the fighting got really hot, with broadsides shattering the ship and blasting splinters into eyes and brains and limbs, and the lads working the pumps furiously to keep the ship afloat, and the marines fighting off the enemy boarding party with cutlasses and axes:
Be strong!
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift;
We have hard work to do and loads to lift;
Shun not the struggle, face it, ’tis God’s gift.
2 Be strong!
Say not the days are evil— who’s to blame?
And fold the hands and acquiesce— O shame!
Stand up, speak out, and bravely, in God’s Name.
3 Be strong!
It matters not how deep intrenched the wrong,
How hard the battle goes, the day, how long;
Faint not, fight on! Tomorrow comes the song.
Amen. Author: Maltbie D. Babcock
Our very savvy financial advisor has always told us to 'hold fast". The market goes up and the market goes down. Panic does not work well with your finances. You are in it for the long term and over the long term the market, stocks, well-chosen, will do well. Of course, choosing wisely and being diversified is always smart advice.