Reblog: When Holding is the Hardest Part
“The easy money has been made” is one of my least favourite sayings about investing.
Making money in the markets is never easy. In fact, I would argue that it’s always hard.
Convincing yourself to buy during a bear market is hard. Convincing yourself to hold during a bull market is hard. Figuring out what to do during a sideways market is hard. Watching others make more money in the markets than you is hard. Following a plan when things aren’t going your way is hard. There’s always going to be a reason to do something that goes against your best interests.
Howard Marks wrote about this idea in a memo for Oaktree Capital a couple years ago:
Two of the main reasons people sell stocks is because they go up and because they go down. When they go up, people who hold them become afraid that if they don’t sell, they’ll give back their profit, kick themselves, and be second-guessed by their bosses and clients. And when they go down, they worry that they’ll fall further.
Where we are in each cycle usually determines what the hard part is at that moment. The hardest part for the past few years has been holding on during a rising market. Investors witnessed two epic market crashes in the span of eight years to kick off the start of the century. Those types of losses leave scars on an investor’s psyche.