Perspective

To the Moon, Alice!

Imagine if in the summer of 2018 you embarked on the vacation of a lifetime--a 2-year journey to the Moon with SpaceX. This was their "Get Away From It All" package which includes no contact with Earth during the voyage.

While gone, you left me in charge of your affairs including your investments.

You have a wonderful trip and then return late in the summer of 2020.* Settling back into terrestrial life, you ask me for a rundown of what you missed. My reply: "Well, a few things happened here and there. Perhaps most interesting, we had a pandemic."

"A what?!?" you exclaim.

"I know, a once in a generation viral pandemic. It was bad, but not nearly as bad as some of those in history. Still many people died. There was a lot of chaos and confusion at times. Lots of events were cancelled; so life was pretty disrupted for a while. The overall hit to well being for the typical person as meaningfully, negatively impacted." I explain.

"Oh, that is horrible." You dare to ask, "How are my investments?"

"They are worth basically just as much today as they were when you left plus a little for inflation." I say calmly.

"That's wonderful. Surprising even. But how did you manage that?"

"Well, it wasn't much that I did. There were a few moves here and there that probably added a little value--just sped up the time to recovery. For a while the investments had lost quite a bit. You would have been pretty worried had you been around to witness it. And the values were up quite a bit from when you left right up until the pandemic really set in. All in all it was wild times."

Reassured, you say, "Well, I'm glad that is all behind us. I left after a great 9 years of investing, and I got to ignore a crazy few."

. . . The end is not near, folks. There is a LONG journey ahead. If you don't realize those are positive thoughts, you need to re-read the passage above. The pain that has and will hit human life is beyond sadness. Don’t compound your worries with shortsightedness—in investing or any aspect of life. Cherish those around you and make good choices for the long term.




*Make it a three year trip returning 2021 or a four-year trip until 2022 if that makes this more realistic in your view.