The market is not yet opened on Monday August 24, 2015 and it is already looking nasty out there. As of writing this sentence it looks like the Dow is going to open somewhere between 600 and 700 points lower than it did Friday…oh, how I long for Friday which closed the Dow 500 points lower from Thursday…never mind I am dreaming of Thursday which only had a 200 point drop. Again, as of writing this post the market is down 8% or so year to date.
Remind Yourself of Certain Things during an Investment Downturn
Giving back months (and for some stocks years upon years) of gains in only a few short days hurts. I am writing this post in part for any reader, but mostly to remind myself:
- This pain is temporary
- Almost every 10 year period in the market’s history has produced 7% yields- this too will correct itself
- This is the time to buy
- No reason to sell anything in the dividend portfolio as they are solid companies
- If the market were closed tomorrow they would be great businesses to own
- TURN OFF THE NOISE!
Another reason to own dividend stocks over growth stocks. When you’re focused on cash stream, and not growth, the insanity of the stock market doesn’t bother you as much.
The insanity in the markets in general is a great reason to make sure you diversify, not just in the stock markets, but diversifying across many different types of income generating assets outside the stock markets. Everything is correlated to one degree or another, but few things are as correlated as everything in the stock and bond markets these days.