The last three months of 2023 surprised a lot of investors. If that was the only sentence I wrote for this post, it would be enough. Why? A lot of investors didn’t see the S & P 500 rising, hitting all time highs. Why? There was a lot of talk surrounding recession, interest rate hikes, and consumer sentiment around spending. The economy and the stock market defied all of that. The market rose 15% in the last three months. The market rising 15% in a year is considered a good year. The market this year is a salient reminder that no one knows anything. It’s also a good reminder that all you can control is how much you invest and to a lesser degree, how long you can invest. That’s the way the ordinary becomes extraordinary.
One of my favorite writers, Morgan Housel says, you don’t need to be an extraordinary investor to have extraordinary results, you just need to be an average investor for an extraordinary amount of time. This is what i’m finding to to be true as time goes on.
This year, i’ve done something a little different with James Capital. I’ve simplified my portfolio and for the first time, I took a bonus. 1/4 of the year-to-date returns. As you age, you begin to see money as just numbers on a screen. That’s not a life that I find fulfilling. Your life is a culmination of memories and experiences. I’ve heard countless stories of individuals who’ve spent most of their life, diligently investing, waiting for retirement to “spend it all”. But, what a lot of us fail to realize is that life does not owe us anything. Everyday is nothing short of a miracle, even though it does not feel that way. A popular book that has been making the rounds on the twittershpere is a book called, “Die with Zero”. I haven’t read it but I can make an educated guess on the philosophy the author is trying to convey to his audience.
Money, wealth, resources has no impact sitting in a bank account. To you or the world. As such, Die with Zero is a command to leave an impact on the world and those closest to you. The status game does nothing but breed envy. Whatever you’ve acquired can’t be taken with you. No one has ever achieved or found a way to do that and they probably won’t.
Looking forward to 2024 comes with excitement but with trepidation. No one knows what will happen. This may get better, they may also get worse. Who knows. That’s the serendipitous nature of life. Things never happen in a linear fashion. It’s volatile. It can be scary but it also can be beautiful. This is why I love writing about investing. Investing is a byproduct of life in general. It goes up, it goes down but over time, collectively, we can only hope things get better and as the past has shown, it does.
la vie en rose,
Daviel