STOCK MARKET
I read an article on the stock market today, apparently this was the worst the worst year since 2008. In 2008, shortly after I retired, I followed the advice of my financial advisor and invested all of my money in an annuity which promised me guaranteed income for life and then watched as the cash value of the annuity dropped in the next year by 40%. I remember a day in which I was shocked that a single filling in a tooth cost almost $300 and then realized that the same day the value of my annuity had dropped by $10,000, thirty times as much.
Maybe getting a financial advisor was a cop out. If I didn’t have a financial advisor I would have to make my own investments. I didn’t know much about the stock market but I already knew that the stock market was touchy feely place and that it was voodoo economics. To even make half way rational choices about how to invest I would have to devote day and night to learning how the stock market worked and fulltime keeping track of it and that is not how I wanted to spend my golden years. So I turned my college retirement account over to Starks.
So as the market dropped farther and farther I did nothing, and then when it went up and up I did nothing and I have done nothing ever since. The investments that Starks Financial makes for me are certainly diversified, which I think is standard practice, but in so many companies I have never heard of, all of which send annual reports which are impossible to read which go straight into the landfill that for me my “portfolio” is incomprehensible.
So a year ago I was informed that my account was being rebalanced 50/50 bonds and stocks. When one would go up the other would go down. I wouldn’t gain much and I wouldn’t lose much. I was safe.
This year the both went down, a lot. But this doesn’t change my attitude. If the people who know what they are doing and have the guidance of even smarter people don’t know what they are doing, what chance do I have? This year I have never looked at the stock market and for a year have stopped watching TV. I had inklings that things weren’t going well but I didn’t worry. I was in good hands. So when I read today that 2022 was the worst year for the stock market since 2008, the year when I did worry, it barely touched me.
The pundits, whenever I’ve checked over the years know exactly why the stock market dropped yesterday. They understand yesterday perfectly. And yet the same people with just as much information about tomorrow as they now have about yesterday, don’t have a clue what is going to happen tomorrow. They are smart as can be looking backward and dumb as a rock looking forward. But who am I to outguess them?
Once you realize that voodoo economics is voodoo economics you are free of having to examine the chicken entrails and can just let the whole business go. Part of the reason for this is while I know that the money I spend on car repairs is real money, the money that I have invested is almost virtual money. When it goes way up my life continues unchanged, when it drops my life continues unchanged. The 20% I lost this year is balanced by the 20% I gained last year (if I did). I never had that money to begin with and I haven’t lost this money now and I’m guessing the gyrations will continue. C’est la vie.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 