Instead of taking all of September off from publishing, I’ll instead vow that for the next four weeks, I won’t tackle any major<\/em> articles. If there’s something that I want to share and that thing can be shared in 20-30 minutes, I’ll do it. This plan will serve the same objective — freeing my mind to focus on the other tasks that need to get done around here — while also giving me an outlet for my writing (and giving you<\/em> something to read).<\/p>\n Sound like a plan?<\/p>\n Instead of a “silent September”, we’ll have a “subdued September” here at Get Rich Slowly. Now and then, I’ll share some quick and interesting money stories.<\/p>\n Here, for instance, is a chart providing a succinct history of the U.S. bull and bear markets since 1926. (Click to open a larger version.)<\/p>\n I love this chart! Produced by First Trust Portfolios<\/a> (and using market data from Morningstar), it mirrors a similar chart from 2014<\/a>.<\/p>\n This chart is unique because instead of showing stock market growth as an unconnected line, it deliberately resets each individual bull and bear market to a baseline. Bear markets are shown in red. (Or is that orange?) Bull markets are shown in blue. They’re plotted on a logarithmic scale.<\/p>\n A “bull market” here is defined as running “from the lowest close reached after the market has fallen 20% or more, to the next market high. Similarly, a “bear market” runs “from when the index closes at least 20% down from its previous high, through the lowest close after it has fallen 20% or more”. That’s a little confusing, I know, but if you look at the chart for a few minutes, it should make sense.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n According to First Trust Portfolios:<\/p>\n This chart makes it easy to visualize just how costly it can be to get gun shy after a market crash. If you stop investing — or worse, pull your money out! — you can miss out on huge growth.<\/p>\n The chart also clearly demonstrates that the U.S. stock market has been growing steadily for the past 90+ years with only occasional (relatively minor) speed bumps. If you let your investing policy be dominated by potential drops, you run a real risk of missing out on future gains<\/em>.<\/p>\n (And honestly? As much as I’m against market timing, I wouldn’t condemn anyone who looked at this chart and thought, “Hm. It looks like we’re near the end of a bull market. Maybe I should cash out for a couple of years.” I don’t plan to do that, but I agree it seems like we’re nearing the end of this cycle.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Who am I kidding?<\/p>\n I can’t go an entire month without publishing anything here at Get Rich Slowly. I need<\/em> to write. And judging from the feedback regarding my planned sabbatical, you folks want me to write! Tell you what, let’s change the premise.<\/p>\n Instead of taking all of September off from publishing, I’ll instead vow that for the next four weeks, I won’t tackle any major<\/em> articles. If there’s something that I want to share and that thing can be shared in 20-30 minutes, I’ll do it. This plan will serve the same objective — freeing my mind to focus on the other tasks that need to get done around here — while also giving me an outlet for my writing (and giving you<\/em> something to read).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3287,"featured_media":237006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[492,499],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236075"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A History of U.S. Bull and Bear Markets<\/h2>\n
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