Quote for the Week
People spend all this time trying to figure out “What time of the year should I make an investment? When should I invest?” And it’s such a waste of time. It’s so futile. I did a great study, it’s an amazing exercise. In the 30 years, 1965 to 1995, if you had invested a thousand dollars, you had incredible good luck, you invested at the low of the year, you picked the low day of the year, you put your thousand dollars in, your return would have been 11.7 compounded. Now some poor unlucky soul, the Jackie Gleason of the world, put in the high of the year. He or she picked the high of the year, put their thousand dollars in at the peak every single time, miserable record, 30 years in a row, picked the high of the year. Their return was 10.6. That’s the only difference between the high of the year and the low of the year. Some other person put in the first day of the year, their return was 11.0. I mean the odds of that are very little, but people spend an unbelievable amount of mental energy trying to pick what the market’s going to do, what time of the year to buy it. It’s just not worth it…
They should buy, hold, and when the market goes down, add to it. Every time the market goes down 10 percent, you add to it, you’d be much — you would have better return than the average of 11 percent, if you believe in it, if it’s money you’re not worried about. — Peter Lynch (source)
From the Archives
Last Call
- Hetty Green and the Timeless Appeal of Market Timing – Monevator
- The Squid Game Stock Market – Owenomics
- Visualizing Every Day of the US Stock Market for the Last 10 Years – Sherwood
- Words Speak Louder Than Acts – Klement on Investing
- How to Avoid Outliving Your Retirement Savings? It’s All in the Sequence – J. Ptak
- The Infinite Loops Guide To…Money – Infinite Loops
- The Hidden Cost of AI: Trading Long-Term Resilience for Short-Term Efficiency – Big Think
- The First Green Money: Nature-Printed Currency – JSTOR Daily
- The 100 Best Sports Moments of the Quarter Century – The Ringer
- The Largest Sofa You Can Move Around a Corner – Quanta