It’s March 23rd, which means it has been one year since the S&P 500 hit it’s COVID-19-induced low. As it became clear that this virus was going to become a global pandemic and the safest way to deal with it was to keep people from spreading the bug by locking the world down, the equity markets shed value in the fastest bear market ever. From February 19th to March 23rd, 2020, the 500 largest publicly traded companies tracked but the Standard and Poor’s index lost a collective 34%.
Thankfully the bounce-back was just as swift as the fallout, although no one knew it at the time. Because that’s the thing with the markets, isn’t it? No one really knows what’s going to happen.
But one thing we do know about markets is that they have a pretty strong tendency to go up. And since March 23rd of 2020, that’s what they have been doing. The fastest bear market in history has been followed by the strongest 12-month recovery. The S&P 500 is up 76% since it’s bottom one year ago. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is up 95%. The notable major asset that is down is the 10-year U.S. Treasury at -4.7%. Ironically, Treasuries are a go-to for safety in crazy markets and it’s exactly where most of the people who bailed out of the stock market would have likely landed.
As an advisor I talked a lot of clients off the ledge during that month. At the time, I was working with people either in retirement or mere years away from it. The idea of losing their hard-saved money was terrifying. As their advisor it was my job to hear their fear and walk them through the scenarios: what was the worst? What was likely? What did they feel versus what had they experienced in the past? I talked them through the feelings and got them to recommit to their plan. That’s what a good advisor does. I created Valkyrie because that kind of support shouldn’t be limited just to people in retirement. Want to learn what else I can do for you? Schedule a free “Get to Know Each Other” consultation and let me tell you. https://calendly.com/valkyriefinancial/consult
0 Comments