Stocks Just Logged Their Best 6-Year Run in Over 25 Years
Despite relentless bad news, the stock market just completed one of its strongest multi-year runs in a generation. Staying in paid off.
Here's the cold truth: the investors who panicked and pulled out over the last six years left serious money on the table. Through a global pandemic, runaway inflation, multiple rate-hiking cycles, geopolitical chaos, and a banking scare or two, the stock market just wrapped up its strongest six-year run in more than 25 years. That's not a typo.
The old Wall Street saying — bull markets climb a wall of worry — has never looked more accurate. Every year of this run came loaded with reasons to sell. You had a real case for doom at almost every turn. And yet, the market climbed anyway. That's the lesson the data keeps hammering home, and most retail investors keep ignoring it.
Read more Bill Ackman Holds Mag 7 Stocks but Only Loves Three of Them →
Timing the market is a loser's game. The people who stayed fully invested, even through the gut-wrenching drawdowns, captured gains that market-timers simply couldn't replicate. Miss a handful of the best trading days in any given year and your returns crater. This six-year stretch is a masterclass in why that rule matters more than any headline.
The analytical takeaway here isn't just feel-good noise. It's a direct challenge to the instinct to "wait for things to calm down." Things never calm down. There's always a reason to sit in cash. The market doesn't wait for your comfort level, and the last six years proved it in the most expensive way possible for anyone who blinked.
Continue reading at MarketWatch.com
