Pretty nasty stuff in the market today.
I struggle to come up with a great comment on this, aside from “it happens.” It really does. Yes, a 3% down day is bad even by historical standards, but it’s happened before. It’ll happen again in your investing lifetime. Maybe even soon! The funniest thing about today is that nobody really has an explanation. This was the AP today:
BREAKING: Dow Jones industrial average ends day down more than 500 points on China fears.
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 21, 2015
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsI mean, really? China? Suddenly the market, on a Friday afternoon, realizes we should be afraid of China’s economic slowdown? Or is it China’s stock market implosion? CNN Money says that “uncertainty” around whether or not the Fed will raise rates in September was a contributing factor. And do you want to know why the uncertainty is back? Because stocks are down! Get it? Anyhow. This is what markets do. Maybe we’ve forgotten since it has literally been four years since the market has done anything at all. But if we make an effort, we’ll remember that we’ve seen lots worse. Lots, lots worse.
This was our first 3% drop in nearly four years. There had been 46 such drops in the four years prior to that. — Eddy Elfenbein (@EddyElfenbein) August 21, 2015
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We got pretty comfortable there for a while. Is this the big one? I have absolutely no idea. What should you do?
You can just save this for later pic.twitter.com/1t25D5PPOr
— James Osborne, CFP® (@BasonAsset) October 1, 2014
Bason Asset Management 