What I can tell you with certainty is that for an active investor there will be an absolute gulf between the lifetime returns of someone who repeatedly makes investment moves that feel "difficult" and someone else who repeatedly makes moves that feel "easy":

- A "difficult" move is to be scaling out into price strength when investors' mood, including your own, is very optimistic, people are eager to buy, and the prevailing narrative is positive with the outlook good.

- An "easy" move by contrast is to sell into price weakness when investors, including yourself, are becoming increasingly concerned, the market narrative is negative, and the outlook poor.

Applied contrarianism and emotional discipline being key aspects to this.

Any active investor repeating behaviour patterns that feel emotionally "easy" will, over the long term, achieve poor returns. That's most people, by the way, as documented by research such as the regular DALBAR reports, the latest one of which I linked to yesterday:
https://wealthwatchadvis...miumEdition2020_WWA.pdf

If an investor lacks the type of mindset to consistently make "difficult" moves then the evidence indicates they'd achieve far better lifetime returns by handing over responsibility to some process, or entity that takes them (their emotions, essentially) out of the decision-making loop. There's nothing wrong with that, and indeed it can take wisdom and considerable self-awareness to acknowledge it.

I would suggest forgetting about what you think may / may not happen tomorrow and focus more on where you want your portfolio to be in 10, 20, 30, 40 years time. What most dictates that is the type of investing method you choose to *consistently deploy* over that whole period, not what markets might do tomorrow, what inflation number comes up next week, what Putin does month, or what PMI trends pan out over H1.

I guess that smell of seared arses on here is something to do with having
a tightly themed portfolio that is on the wrong theme, (this week)

Doom and panic over what has been a relatively small fall or a pretty good gain depending on where you were holding or nout much has happened if you were relatively balanced.

This isn't Covid week where the bottom fell out of everything except in particular areas. As sanity returns the decent stocks in those areas will start to rise again and the crap will continue sinking.

Honestly I am a bit shocked at the doom and gloom.

An excellent post thanks.

I've cherry picked the couple of parts that stood out for me.

Bits in bold strike a particular note.

I think a bit of a plan is forming.

I think many are traumatised by the ongoing fear, doom and gloom over the last two years. Just be sensible about your investments , not too much with one manager or style, or just go passive and leave the rest up to the gods. All this trying to work out when to sell, when to jump back in , what is going to perform for the next six months to a year, second guessing yourself and all will drive you cookoo.

PS. Those that can do it i take my hat of to you.... for me it does my head in, i think i have aged a ton in the last while.

Does anyone know/remember how markets behaved when the dotcom bubble burst - was the whole market swept down ? - or was it just focussed on the bubble stocks ?