Just Keep Buying

Today's Newsletter:

• Quote From Jeremy Siegel

• The Time is Now

• A Money Question

Quote

“Fear has a greater grasp on human action than does the weight of historical evidence.” - Jeremy Siegel

Jeremy Siegel is a world-renowned finance professor. Through all of his teachings, this quote stands out to me. It has nothing to do with financial analysis or stock picking. It has to do with the biggest driver of investment returns, human emotions.

The Time is Now

I am on a trip that I go on every year. I am at the USA baseball team tryouts. The best 100 high school players in the country compete for 20 spots to represent their country. The national anthem hits different at this event.

This year, I was reflecting on things that have happened over the past 12 months. The truth is everything that I have consistently committed to over that time has borne fruit. Yet, each one of those things has had days, weeks, and even months that it felt like it was going nowhere.

Some of you are thinking right now, “Is this newsletter going nowhere?”

Hear me out, I promise there is a money tip coming.

Today I want to talk about how all of that applies to investing.

To start, let’s consider what has happened over the past year in the markets. We have had crushing inflation for the better part of the past two years. We have had seven interest rate hikes in the past 12 months. Russia and Ukraine are still at war. There has been a massive supply and demand gap on hundreds of products. 90% or more of the financial media has been preaching doom and gloom (90% is my personal estimate, it is probably higher).

Yet, the S&P 500 is up more than 16% in the past 12 months!

So, what is the lesson we can learn from this? Just keep buying.

Ya, it sounds so simple. It almost sounds too simple. Well here are what the numbers say.

The S&P 500 has been positive for 73% of one-year periods.

The S&P 500 has been positive for 88% of five-year periods.

The S&P 500 has been positive for 94% of ten-year periods.

The media is paid to get you to click on their article. The articles that get the most clicks strike a cord of fear. They are eternal pessimists. A bet that if made with their own money would be a losing one nearly every time.

Let’s circle back to Jeremy Seigel's words, “Fear has a greater grasp on human action than does the weight of historical evidence.”

The historical evidence clearly says, the long-term investor should just keep buying. Yet, often times we pause and think, “I will wait for a sign”. We look for safety in a world that is controlled by the media. The same media that is built on sounding pessimistic, not optimistic.

If you are looking to build wealth, there is one thing I would encourage you to do. Stack the odds in your favor. The odds are in favor of buying today, tomorrow, and every day in the future. Investing is a game of controlling emotions and following the evidence. Do both long enough and you win the game.

A Money Question?

“What are you waiting for?”

The best time to plant a tree was yesterday. The best time to start investing was yesterday. Time it all you want, it is a losing game. Outthink it all you want, it is a losing game. The stock market has been one of the most consistent ways to build wealth over the past 100 years. It will never feel like the right time, just start.

Work with Jacob

I help athletes and entrepreneurs pay less in taxes, coordinate their financial life, and invest for the long run.

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Until Next Time, My Friends

JL Strategic Wealth, LLC is a Registered Investment Advisor, located in the State of Missouri. JL Strategic Wealth provides investment advisory and related services for clients nationally. JL Strategic Wealth will maintain all applicable registration and licenses as required by the various states in which JL Strategic Wealth conducts business, as applicable. JL Strategic Wealth renders individualized responses to persons in a particular state only after complying with all regulatory requirements, or pursuant to an applicable state exemption or exclusion. Nothing in this content is intended to be, and you should not consider anything in this content to be, investment, accounting, tax, or legal advice.