Fear is hurting our country. Fear of investing, fear of flying, fear of the unknown. Franklin Roosvelt said “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” when he was first sworn in as President in 1933, referring to the depression then gripping our country. The problem is that it’s easy to say you won’t be scared, much more difficult not to be.
The oldest adage in investing is “Buy low, sell high”. It’s also easy to say, but difficult to do. Because it’s easy to invest when all the news is great, the market is high, and everyone is optimistic. It’s much more difficult to buy when the market is down and everything looks scary. Yet that’s when the real money is made.
That doesn’t mean buying anything willy-nilly. But if you invest in profitable companies, you’re not going to be risking your entire investment. Profitable companies can’t go out of business and their stock can’t go to zero. And the odds that the market will be much higher sometime during the next 5 years are awfully good.
I will give you verbatim the same advice I gave on a computer bulletin board (i.e. pre-internet) to investors after the crash in October of 1987. “This may not be the bottom, but it sure as hell ain’t the top. Take advantage of it while you can”.
One other investing comment I would like to make. A number of people have suggested to me about buying stock now to be partriotic. It’s a nice sentiment, but it’s not going to have as large an effect as something else we can do. Go on vacation. Take that trip to visit cousin Maria that you’ve been putting off. That weekend trip to Atlantic City you cancelled? Un-cancel it. The airline, hotel, aircraft, travel, tourist and support industries are really being hurt, bringing down our whole economy. And it’s mostly because we are afraid. It’s never been safer to fly or to travel, with all the new security in place, so why not?
It is my opinion that this is a real opportunity for us. The US is unquestionably the most powerful country in the world. And we have a chance to show everyone that we can react with calm resolve, without anger and fear. That we can show the best of America, responding with courage like we did after Pearl Harbor. But after Pearl Harbor we also showed some of the worst of America, persecuting and imprisoning innocent Japanese-Americans. I know this time we will respond with the utmost respect for innocent Muslims, and not give into our unreasoned fear.
Mostly I think we should ignore the talking heads on television and get back to our lives. We’ve suffered a horrible tragedy. But let’s not let the terrorist win by giving in to the fear. They are called terrorists for a reason, they use fear as a weapon. The criminal investigation will continue, and the guilty will be caught and punished. In the meantime, let’s not give them the satisfaction of turning us against our own, turning our country into a police state, and letting that fear destroy the great prosperity we’ve enjoyed the last many years.
If you want to forward this email on to someone, please do with my blessings. But it’s more important to forward the sentiment. Thanks for reading, and I now get off my soapbox.