Gen X watched their portfolios explode in 2000. Then implode. Then spent the next decade clawing back to zero while everyone told them to keep dollar-cost averaging into the void. They finally recovered around 2013. Took a victory lap. Started believing in the system again.
Now they're 50-55 with maybe 15 years left before they need this money to actually work. The same people who bought Pets.com at $14 are now praying their target-date funds don't sh*t the bed right before they collect.
The technical setup here is f*cking poetic. These investors got ruined once by irrational exuberance. They learned nothing except to be scared. So they sat in bonds for years earning 2% while the S&P tripled. Finally capitulated back into equities around 2017 because their advisor showed them a chart that proved stocks always go up over 30-year periods. Incredible timing as always.
They can't afford another crash. The headlines know it. The asset managers know it. The algos definitely know it. Meanwhile these people are refreshing their Fidelity apps like it's going to change the outcome. Checking their balance at 9:31 AM. Again at 9:33 AM. Portfolio down $847 since breakfast. Better sell some growth and buy an inflation-protected bond fund with a 0.87% expense ratio.
The dotcom bubble didn't haunt their portfolios. Their portfolios are fine. The portfolios recovered in 2013 and have compounded nicely since then assuming they didn't panic-sell in March 2020, which of course they absolutely f*cking did. What's haunting them is the certainty that they'll somehow manage to lose money in the stock market a second time right before they need it most.
Turns out the real retirement plan was the bad decisions we made along the way.
Photo by Nick Chong on Unsplash
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