Key insights
- The author argues that there are always reasons to be bearish, but focusing too much on negative headlines can lead to missed opportunities. They suggest investing despite potential risks, highlighting the importance of owning assets over holding cash, especially during economic downturns when governments may resort to printing money, devaluing cash holdings.
Every time I come here, 2 or 3 out of the top 10 posts here are always saying why the market is overvalued or why the market should be down but isn't. War, tariffs, geopolitics, AI bubble, big tech concentration, protests, layoffs, etc. When market is crashing, it can crash even more. When it's rallying, it could be a trap. When it's booming, it could be a bubble.
The market has always been like this. There's always something that should be causing the market to crash like the Great Depression. When I first started investing seriously in 2012-2013, it was the "taper tantrum" and the Greece debt crisis. People thought the fed pulling back on asset purchase would tank the market and cause another 08 crash. The 08 crash was still fresh in everyone's mind. People also thought Greece debt crisis would cause a contagion crash too.
By 2012, the market was valued the same as pre-08 crash. People said how could the stock market possibly be at the same level of the second biggest bubble in history within 4 years? The 2012 market must be in a bubble too.
Turns out, 2012 was one of the best times to invest as the mobile boom fully took off. So many companies 10x, 100x, 1000x since 2012 if you chose well.
Stop reading the headlines so much. You can find an article telling you why Great Depression 2.0 is coming soon anywhere on the internet. They're designed to scare you, get you share, get you to subscribe. You're not an expert on war, middle east, AI after reading a few news articles. You're just not. You're not going to be able to predict the future. Just invest anyways. If the world collapses, there are far bigger issues. Not to mention, it's much better to own assets than cash almost always. Guess what they'll do if the economy crashes? Print until your money is worthless. This is why the poor, who don't own assets, gets screwed every single time there is a financial crisis.
The people who are always posting about how the market should be crashing are just hopeful that it does crash so they can buy in. That's it. That's their entire reason for those posts. I was like this in 2012-2013 too. I said the market is going to crash like 08. No one should buy. I just wanted an 08 crash again so I could enter cheap.
Remember what you're actually investing in. You're investing in human progress - the expectation that the human species are getting better and better at producing which translates to profits. Have we stopped making advancements? Are we becoming less efficient/productive over time? No. Arguably, this is accelerating with AI and other tech advancements that build on top of each other.