Have you ever hoped for a correction?

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EarlyStart
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Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by EarlyStart »

If you have a long time horizon still, would you prefer the market plummet so that your dollar cost average is lowered?


This is kind of a random thought I have. I think I'd be happier if the market corrected. If I'm purchasing securities with every paycheck, why should I want prices to stay where the are or go higher in the near term? For people in the accumulation stage, this perspective could make them more likely to stay the course.


Obviously for people with a shorter time horizon this would not be beneficial. Can anybody relate to this sentiment, or am I just out of my mind? :beer
livesoft
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by livesoft »

I hope for a correction every year, but I want it to be short-term and back to all-time highs by year-end. 2014 did not disappoint.
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bogleblitz
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by bogleblitz »

Yes, was hoping for a 10-20% correction this year 2014. I don't like seeing the market at an all time high every month.
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cheese_breath
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by cheese_breath »

I wouldn't mind seeing one next year. Now that I've raised the basis on my taxable TSM this year by tax gain harvesting at 0% federal and state tax I wouldn't mind a $3,000 loss so I could reduce the federal tax by $450 next year.
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lack_ey
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by lack_ey »

Everyone loves themselves a correction while still in accumulation. (okay, not really, but humor me)

How about a real bear market? How about ten years of underperformance, here we come? Japan's charted the way and now it's our turn to follow? How low can you go and for how long before you start losing it?
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EarlyStart
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by EarlyStart »

So it's more common than I thought. Even if it takes years to retrace previous highs, what's not to love about a 50% downturn if you have a long time?
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EarlyStart
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by EarlyStart »

lack_ey wrote:Everyone loves themselves a correction while still in accumulation. (okay, not really, but humor me)

How about a real bear market? How about ten years of underperformance, here we come? Japan's charted the way and now it's our turn to follow? How low can you go and for how long before you start losing it?

Yeah, I mean Japan basically just stimulated their way into nothingness. It's not impossible for any other country, so I get your point.

Eventually you would start thinking about how their may be long term structural issues. Japan also traded at 60-90 times earnings for quite a while, so you might be less surprised in that case than you would with the US trading at 20x earnings and never making a comeback. http://www.vectorgrader.com/indicators/ ... e-earnings
FedGuy
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by FedGuy »

EarlyStart wrote:So it's more common than I thought. Even if it takes years to retrace previous highs, what's not to love about a 50% downturn if you have a long time?
The problem is that, if there's a 50% downturn, a lot of companies will have layoffs. I was buying some nice cheap stocks for a few years after 2008 until I lost my job. Once that happened, I couldn't afford to continue buying stocks, so it didn't really do me a lot of good anymore.
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by nisiprius »

Well, I certainly wish that markets could grow a a moderate rate instead of going through boom-and-bust cycles, but it's not a wish I expect to see granted.

What's not to love about it is that 20% corrections are usually a sign of problems in the economy, and 50% corrections are usually a sign of a crisis in the economy, and 80% corrections are usually a sign of the Great Depression or worse.

In Benjamin Roth's The Great Depression: A Diary he feels terribly frustrated by his inability to snap up the bargains he sees all around him, both in stocks and in real estate, due to lack of money to do it with. As a young lawyer, he was in better shape than many but he complains throughout the book about how badly the Depression is treating "professional men."

In September, 1929, John Jakob Raskob told everyone that "Everybody Ought To Be Rich" and that they could achieve it by investing $15 a month into "good common stocks." (His numbers were phonied up, extrapolations from the extravagant bull market and his belief that he and anyone could achieve compound growth rates of double the market as a whole by picking "good" stocks). But after his crash, his audience--white-collar workers like clerks in New York, young managers at GM, etc.--were badly hit by unemployment after the crash and didn't have $15 a month (equivalent to $230/month today) to invest.

I was fortunately close to retirement when I was laid off in late 2008 and had more or less completed my retirement savings; I had substantial retirement portfolio, so I could have rebalanced within the portfolio. But I wasn't going to buy stocks, even at bargain prices, out of my unemployment benefits.

A big correction is not a mere percentage. You're used to seeing the wings on the airliner flex, but when they flex five times as much as you've ever seen before, it is no longer a question of how soon you'll be out of the turbulence, there is a sudden realization of the possibility that wings have a breaking point. You're used to seeing an occasional oncoming car crowd the double line. But when the oncoming car is actually well across the double line, there is a sudden realization that there are drunks on the road.

Social disruption is an opportunity of sorts, but it's a lottery. People make huge profits in wartime, but there is no guarantee that you are going to be one of them. In the extreme, social disruption leads to revolution. The British investors who bought CSA bonds (Confederate States of America) did not enjoy the "correction" that followed. To be heretical about it, the simple principles of buy-and-hold and stay-the course does assume fundamental stability of the stock market and the economic system.

If you had been investing in this national stock market (blue line), would you have been hoping for a correction so that you could buy at bargain prices?

Image

Are you sure?

Image
Last edited by nisiprius on Wed Dec 24, 2014 7:17 am, edited 5 times in total.
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user5027
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by user5027 »

Have I ever hoped for a correction? Yes, while my 401K rollover to my IRA was out of the market for a few weeks.
I would have felt bad for the rest of you. :twisted:
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by basspond »

lack_ey wrote:How about a real bear market? How about ten years of underperformance, here we come? Japan's charted the way and now it's our turn to follow? How low can you go and for how long before you start losing it?
In the last 50 years we have already had two of these periods. (64-78 and 00-11).
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by dsmil »

If I were selfish, I would want the market to tank because I'm in my 20's and don't have as much skin in the game as I will later in life. Luckily, I'm a good son and wouldn't wish that on my parents who would like to retire one day :D
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by lack_ey »

basspond wrote:
lack_ey wrote:How about a real bear market? How about ten years of underperformance, here we come? Japan's charted the way and now it's our turn to follow? How low can you go and for how long before you start losing it?
In the last 50 years we have already had two of these periods. (64-78 and 00-11).
Yes, I mean whether anybody say 35-45 years old in '74 was saying, "Yesssssss! Ten more years, please!" Or asking for another crash in '11, if we want to go there.
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plannerman
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by plannerman »

I'm hoping for a correction next week. My "uncontrollable" 2015 income from SS, pension and RMDs is on the cusp of going over the next Medicare Part B premium breakpoint. Just a few bucks more in RMDs next year could cost me $125/month in increased premiums. I guess there are worse problems.

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flyingaway
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by flyingaway »

When I have cash, I wish for a correction. My 401(k) contributions are automatically invested on the last day of each month. The last two dips were in the middle of a month. Missed both.

Seriously, my taxable account is filled with spare money in hands, or "emergency money" as other people might call it. I sometimes wait for a dip to put the money in. Note that I do not know if a dip, a correction, or a bear is coming, so holding money and waiting for a correction does not really work. I just feel good about it when I do buy a dip, usually not at the bottom of a dip.
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Tycoon
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by Tycoon »

Yes, I do selfishly hope for corrections.
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TheTimeLord
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by TheTimeLord »

In 2016 after we are up to 2525 in 2015.
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fposte
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by fposte »

I wouldn't mind a little pullback on the 31st to lower RMDs.
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TomatoTomahto
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by TomatoTomahto »

Tycoon wrote:Yes, I do selfishly hope for corrections.
I'm a bit sheepish about it, but we will probably have another 5 years of peak accumulation. I have been unable to convince my wife to retire, so a good correction will be handy, especially if it makes a large correction/crash less likely right after we retire.
I get the FI part but not the RE part of FIRE.
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ogd
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by ogd »

No, I don't hope for corrections. Stock prices don't exist in a vacuum, they mean something about the health of the underlying companies. Even the relatively short recession of 2008 cost us trillions of output, i.e. wealth that was never created, some of which would have gone to us shareholders.

From a longer post of mine http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtop ... 7#p1843816 :
ogd wrote:Even the iron-willed robot view of things mistakenly assumes that the stocks that are down 50% are the same companies that the foolish human was willing to buy at 140% higher prices. This is false. Those discounted companies are bruised and battered, their credit lines frozen, their customers shaken and tight-pursed, in the middle of massive layoffs, some of them a month or less from bankruptcy , the others firing off cautiously reassuring PR releases about the immediate health of the company and less reassuring internal memos about the immediate need to control spending. So ask me, do I want the pleasantly booming stocks in which most of my hard-earned money is invested to turn into those zombie apocalypse victims / survivors next year, instead of having another couple of kick-ass quarters? Hell no.
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TheTimeLord
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by TheTimeLord »

If you want to know the true answer to this question for yourself, go back to you account(s) history for your account(s) and look to see what trades you made between 10/13-10/20. The truth will be revealed.

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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by randomguy »

dsmil wrote:If I were selfish, I would want the market to tank because I'm in my 20's and don't have as much skin in the game as I will later in life. Luckily, I'm a good son and wouldn't wish that on my parents who would like to retire one day :D
Run the math on how little it matters. A short correction like 2008-9 doesn't give you much time to invest money and a long one (i.e. Japan since 1990) is going to question your faith in equities.

The idea world would probably have been to buy a house in 1965 or so and then work for the next 35 years. Inflation would have made that house really affordable and by the time 2000 rolled around you would have been heavily into bonds.

The reality is over your investing career there will be a couple of big corrections and a ton of minor ones. The 21 year old in 1960, is now retired and has lived through 66, 72-72, 2000-2002, 2008-9 and various short things like black monday, 1997 minicarash, 2010 flash crash, 2011 (a nice 19% correction), and whatever was around in in the 60s/70s. When they happen might help or hurt you but not by much.
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by staythecourse »

I've hit financial malaise. I don't care if the market "corrects", goes up, or sideways anymore. The poster above showed a chart of VOO hitting the skids in 10/14 and I didn't even realize it until now when that post was made.

The markets will do whatever they want, but if I had to wish for something it is not what the markets do when I am accumulating. If it is down or up I am fine as I still have a job and a salary to cover all my expenses and then some. What I would care more about is how the markets do the first 10 yrs. after I retire as that sequence of returns is likely to be more impactful in my financial life. The problem Is no one knows what will happen so of all the things I think about how the market does today or tomorrow is not one of them.

Good luck.
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by NightOwl »

EarlyStart wrote:This is kind of a random thought I have. I think I'd be happier if the market corrected.
Hi EarlyStart,

It's not at all a random thought, nor is it idiosyncratic to you. William Bernstein (poster wbern on this forum) has said:
For the young investor in the saving phase, stocks aren’t that terribly risky; in fact, the young investor should get down on his or her knees and pray for a brutal bear market, which will enable him or her to buy stock shares cheaply.
A couple of points to consider, however:

1. Obviously, the market doesn't care what you root for, so I think in general it's better just to take what comes and not invest any energy in wishing for a particular outcome.

2. When one (not necessarily you) openly roots for a correction, it tends to rub many people the wrong way, as you are also therefore rooting for their retirements to be more precarious or their jobs to be more unstable. It's sort of unseemly to root for those things so that you can invest more cheaply, so especially given point 1, I'd avoid doing so. As one who has retired parents, a market correction is sort of a wash for me, as I am their backstop.

3. As others have pointed out here and in many similar threads, don't naively assume that you will be able to take advantage of lower prices, especially if you lose your job in the turmoil that surrounds market crashes. I think there's a bit of a mistake embedded in a focus on market returns. The amount of money one saves is such a key driver of eventual wealth, and it often gets neglected in favor of discussions of portfolio construction and market returns. Yes, it's good to reduce average ER by .1%, but it's likely better to save another $X,000 annually. I want the economy to keep performing well so that I can make and save a lot of money, even if that doesn't optimize my market returns. Better returns on less money saved doesn't necessarily lead to a brighter financial future than muted returns on more money saved.

NightOwl
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by staythecourse »

NightOwl wrote:3. As others have pointed out here and in many similar threads, don't naively assume that you will be able to take advantage of lower prices, especially if you lose your job in the turmoil that surrounds market crashes. I think there's a bit of a mistake embedded in a focus on market returns. The amount of money one saves is such a key driver of eventual wealth, and it often gets neglected in favor of discussions of portfolio construction and market returns. Yes, it's good to reduce average ER by .1%, but it's likely better to save another $X,000 annually. I want the economy to keep performing well so that I can make and save a lot of money, even if that doesn't optimize my market returns. Better returns on less money saved doesn't necessarily lead to a brighter financial future than muted returns on more money saved.

NightOwl
Agreed 100% and find it funny how many folks just don't seem to get or choose not to get this point. Vanguard did a paper on saving which showed increasing saving rate from 3 to 6% or 6 to 9% gives one a return of an 80/20 portfolio with the risk of a 50/50 portfolio. That is how important saving is! If folks want their portfolio larger they should just save more (get more educated, get a higher paying job, cut down/ eliminate debt, LBYM, etc...). These are MUCH more important AND in one's control then "I hope for a correction". How often do we find a thread asking "How do I save more?" or "How do I make more money?" vs. "Should I put 2.5% in EM small cap?"

Good luck.
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by Tycoon »

I like bargins.
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by surfstar »

If the market would go down every two weeks before my contributions hit, but up every other day, I think that'd be great :D
tibbitts
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by tibbitts »

EarlyStart wrote:If you have a long time horizon still, would you prefer the market plummet so that your dollar cost average is lowered?


This is kind of a random thought I have. I think I'd be happier if the market corrected. If I'm purchasing securities with every paycheck, why should I want prices to stay where the are or go higher in the near term? For people in the accumulation stage, this perspective could make them more likely to stay the course.


Obviously for people with a shorter time horizon this would not be beneficial. Can anybody relate to this sentiment, or am I just out of my mind? :beer
No, I want .6% monthly returns from my 50/50 portfolio - exactly the same every month - and 3% annual (personal) inflation every year.

I'm guessing your ability to make ongoing contributions is completely unrelated to the overall health of the economy. Or that you believe it is.
Last edited by tibbitts on Wed Dec 24, 2014 12:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by kolea »

Wishing for something out your control only leads to frustration. So I just keep my powder dry, so to speak, and plug along.
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songman52
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by songman52 »

I agree with surfstar. I'll make our 2015 IRA contributions around the first week of January, so I wouldn't mind buying "on sale". :D
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cheese_breath
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by cheese_breath »

lack_ey wrote:
basspond wrote:
lack_ey wrote:How about a real bear market? How about ten years of underperformance, here we come? Japan's charted the way and now it's our turn to follow? How low can you go and for how long before you start losing it?
In the last 50 years we have already had two of these periods. (64-78 and 00-11).
Yes, I mean whether anybody say 35-45 years old in '74 was saying, "Yesssssss! Ten more years, please!" Or asking for another crash in '11, if we want to go there.
Well between 64-78 I was in my mid 20s to mid 30s, and during most of that time 15% of my income was going into CREF stock. So the low prices didn't bother me at all. By the time 2000 came along I had a good stocks to fixed income balance and came through OK.
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TheTimeLord
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by TheTimeLord »

Lots of people hope for a correction but from the posts so far no one actually took any action besides scheduled monthly contributions during the one in October. Or are we saying 9.9% doesn't qualify as a correction?
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by Toons »

Corrections,Extended Bear Markets ,whatever you want to call them are the long term investors ally.If you are consistently purchasing investments whether it is in 401k,IRA,etc,you are steadily getting more shares for your money every month.I found over the decades the shares purchased during declining markets,were the shares that propelled the portfolio higher much quicker once the market eventually headed North again.
You should train your brain to welcome a bear market as an Opportunity. :happy
1974/1987/2000-2002/2007-2009. Just a few examples of Opportunity.
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greg24
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by greg24 »

I do not wish for the market to go down, as it roils the economy, people lose jobs, people lose homes, etc.

I am fortunate when the market goes down, that my next contribution will buy more shares.

I am fortunate when the market goes up, my current holdings go up.
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by flyingaway »

TheTimeLord wrote:Lots of people hope for a correction but from the posts so far no one actually took any action besides scheduled monthly contributions during the one in October. Or are we saying 9.9% doesn't qualify as a correction?
It is difficult to know when the correction would be over. During the two dips in October and November, I actually put some spare money in, but I did not (was unable to) put it at the bottoms of the dips.
southport
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by southport »

I admit I'm hoping for a correction every time I think about converting trad IRA money to Roth - to be able to convert more shares for a given dollar amount.
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by randomguy »

TheTimeLord wrote:Lots of people hope for a correction but from the posts so far no one actually took any action besides scheduled monthly contributions during the one in October. Or are we saying 9.9% doesn't qualify as a correction?
9.9% isn't a correction. Needs to be 10%:) It is like how we trace this bull market to 2009 despite the 19.9% drop in 2011. When stocks drop 50%+ you can feel pretty comfortable about getting aggressive. At 10% you have no clue if your dropping another 30% or going up 30%.
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by bottlecap »

No. And you shouldn't, either. The type of person that wants a correction would be hesitant to buy during a correction and would lose faith in the market if the correction lasted for more than 5 to 10 years. Then you'd be posting about how the good times are really over for good and the market is not the place to be.

I say this, because wanting a correction indicates you are afraid you are overpaying for stocks. You'd feel the same way during the correction, unless you're simply a sadist. If you buy during the correction and the market goes lower, you just overpaid. The fear never goes away.

Just let it be and don't worry about it. You'll make out fine.

So no, I don't ever want an extended correction. If I buy now, I have no problem with things going ever higher... :wink:

JT
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by mlebuf »

I like to see mild corrections because they likely are an antidote to a potential bubble. When stocks or any investment become highly overvalued, those less well-informed jump in and usually get burned when the bubble bursts. The dot com and real estate bubbles are cases in point. What goes up like a rocket usually comes crashing down like a rocket.
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TravelerMSY
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by TravelerMSY »

If you can truly feel happy about a market correction and the resulting portfolio drawdowns you are either.... Already very rich or truly a long-term investor,
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by tibbitts »

Toons wrote:Corrections,Extended Bear Markets ,whatever you want to call them are the long term investors ally.If you are consistently purchasing investments whether it is in 401k,IRA,etc,you are steadily getting more shares for your money every month.I found over the decades the shares purchased during declining markets,were the shares that propelled the portfolio higher much quicker once the market eventually headed North again.
You should train your brain to welcome a bear market as an Opportunity. :happy
1974/1987/2000-2002/2007-2009. Just a few examples of Opportunity.
That training might be a tough sell to Japanese investors.
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by surfstar »

I honestly didn't know the market went down 9.9% at any point this year. And I sorta follow things - i.e. read some of the less "noisy" articles.
Phew, good thing I didn't miss anything important :D
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by harryw »

nisiprius wrote: <clipped good stuff>
If you had been investing in this national stock market (blue line), would you have been hoping for a correction so that you could buy at bargain prices?

Image

Are you sure?

Image
I've been meaning to compliment you on your impressive talent of getting a point across for a while now, nisiprius.
Have you ever thought of writing a book?

No better way of saying "be careful what you wish for" than those two graphs.
DaChief
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by DaChief »

Just liquidated my TG account and getting ready to transfer cash to VG. Wouldn't mind a bit of a correction for personal reasons before I buy in😁
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by placeholder »

TheTimeLord wrote:If you want to know the true answer to this question for yourself, go back to you account(s) history for your account(s) and look to see what trades you made between 10/13-10/20.
I did not perform a portfolio analysis during that specific week and the ones I did around 10/1 and 11/1 did not trigger any rebalance actions so I continued my contributions in the fashion that they have been for the past couple of years.
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EarlyStart
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by EarlyStart »

FedGuy wrote:
EarlyStart wrote:So it's more common than I thought. Even if it takes years to retrace previous highs, what's not to love about a 50% downturn if you have a long time?
The problem is that, if there's a 50% downturn, a lot of companies will have layoffs. I was buying some nice cheap stocks for a few years after 2008 until I lost my job. Once that happened, I couldn't afford to continue buying stocks, so it didn't really do me a lot of good anymore.

I can understand that for sure. I hope your luck has gotten better in recent years.
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EarlyStart
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by EarlyStart »

NightOwl wrote:
EarlyStart wrote:This is kind of a random thought I have. I think I'd be happier if the market corrected.
Hi EarlyStart,

It's not at all a random thought, nor is it idiosyncratic to you. William Bernstein (poster wbern on this forum) has said:
For the young investor in the saving phase, stocks aren’t that terribly risky; in fact, the young investor should get down on his or her knees and pray for a brutal bear market, which will enable him or her to buy stock shares cheaply.
A couple of points to consider, however:

1. Obviously, the market doesn't care what you root for, so I think in general it's better just to take what comes and not invest any energy in wishing for a particular outcome.

2. When one (not necessarily you) openly roots for a correction, it tends to rub many people the wrong way, as you are also therefore rooting for their retirements to be more precarious or their jobs to be more unstable. It's sort of unseemly to root for those things so that you can invest more cheaply, so especially given point 1, I'd avoid doing so. As one who has retired parents, a market correction is sort of a wash for me, as I am their backstop.

3. As others have pointed out here and in many similar threads, don't naively assume that you will be able to take advantage of lower prices, especially if you lose your job in the turmoil that surrounds market crashes. I think there's a bit of a mistake embedded in a focus on market returns. The amount of money one saves is such a key driver of eventual wealth, and it often gets neglected in favor of discussions of portfolio construction and market returns. Yes, it's good to reduce average ER by .1%, but it's likely better to save another $X,000 annually. I want the economy to keep performing well so that I can make and save a lot of money, even if that doesn't optimize my market returns. Better returns on less money saved doesn't necessarily lead to a brighter financial future than muted returns on more money saved.

NightOwl

I appreciate the well thought out post. I most certainly agree that it would be in poor taste to openly gloat about "wishing" for a correction. Also, as you and others have pointed out, there are economic problems that coexist with many corrections.


My thinking is, because much of the boglehead philosophy is about investor behavior, that this kind of thinking might allow some us to stay the course a little easier. Ya know, like a double-positive, win-win perspective. In terms of taking advantage, I just mean the savings portion of my biweekly paycheck. I don't hold a lot of cash as an opportunist.
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EarlyStart
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by EarlyStart »

bottlecap wrote:No. And you shouldn't, either. The type of person that wants a correction would be hesitant to buy during a correction and would lose faith in the market if the correction lasted for more than 5 to 10 years. Then you'd be posting about how the good times are really over for good and the market is not the place to be.

I say this, because wanting a correction indicates you are afraid you are overpaying for stocks. You'd feel the same way during the correction, unless you're simply a sadist. If you buy during the correction and the market goes lower, you just overpaid. The fear never goes away.

Just let it be and don't worry about it. You'll make out fine.

So no, I don't ever want an extended correction. If I buy now, I have no problem with things going ever higher... :wink:

JT
How can you diagnose somebody's investing psychology like that? "You'd feel like ________", "you'd be posting________", etc.


I'm not afraid of overpaying for stocks. How could I be at 22? Is Dow 18000 going to be expensive in 20 years? I doubt it. The point I was getting at is that if you have a long investing horizon, it might help you stay the course if you were to view it as a positive. I might say to myself, "My monthly savings are going towards more shares/dollar this month!" It's just a behavioral hack.
SGM
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by SGM »

I don't know that I ever hoped for a correction. Corrections just happen and I always consistently stayed invested and dollar cost averaged in with every paycheck. I was well aware that during the accumulation stage I would be better off if the market was down. With that knowledge I was able to resist panic selling.
FedGuy
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Re: Have you ever hoped for a correction?

Post by FedGuy »

EarlyStart wrote:I hope your luck has gotten better in recent years.
It has; thank you very much for the well-wishes. It was tough for a while, but then I got a job that paid more than the one I lost. It wasn't a pleasant place to work, but it enabled me to rebuild my finances. More importantly, it gave me new experience and qualifications that made it possible for me to transition to my current job, which pays somewhat less but is a great fit for me. It's both the best working environment and the best job I've ever had, so, silver linings, I guess.
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