this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2023
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You are looking at it the wrong way, Because the market has traded mostly sideways for a while that means that the market is underpriced compared to what it should be. That is when you should be more willing to invest. I know it seems counterintuitive. This article explains the concept better than I can.
Since ~2019, the SP500 has gone up 45%. That is the equivalent of a 8.5% compound interest rate or 11% simple interest rate per year. If you're portfolio accounts are under performing that by a big margin than you might want to switch Funds and/or account providers.
There are always gloomy articles and headlines meant to convince you to sell. Because they want to buy your stocks on the cheap.
Everyone always quotes the growth of the S&P500, but isn't pretty much no one 100% invested for their entire retirement in the S&P500? My 401k is in a target date 2055 and my Roth is split between FXAIX (S&P500, 55%), FSPSX (international, 20%), FSMAX (extended market, 15%), FXNAX (bonds, 10%). It's a little conservative but not that conservative.
Fidelity says my Roth 1Y returns are 10.8% compared to S&P 500's 10.3%. It says my 1Y returns on my target date 2055 are 18.0%. Neither of those numbers can be accurate so it's hard to know what to read in to them. If I try to calculate my returns in a very simple way (take current value, subtract contributions from the last 12 months, which can be easily looked up, call that number X, then find the growth rate that takes the account value I had as Nov. 1st last year and compound that at different rates until it produces X as of now - this gives an upper bound on returns, since the returns of the various money deposited throughout the year at random times is treated as not growing at all), I get 1%. And that's 1% before inflation.
I know the S&P500 is 10% YoY over really long time scales, and I also know that number is like +/-15% year to year. But it feels like my fund picks are pretty normal yet they're not worth any more than what I put in to them since I started saving. Because of that, I'd have to have a 30+% savings rate in order to catch up to the "X salary by Y age" rule because the assumptions over the growth rate of the accounts are wildly off in the years since I started investing.
FXIAX has been pretty much flat for the last couple years. Your 2019-2020 contributions should have nice gains, but they're a relatively small part of your total contributions. FSPSX & FSMAX are pretty flat going back to 2019, with significant declines from 2021. FXNAX has been hit hard by the interest rate hikes. You've had a slow couple of years, without enough accumulation to outweigh them.
That's just the way it goes sometimes. If you look at your returns after a +20% year, it's going to feel great; if you look after a -5% year, it's going to feel bad. Retirement progress, in my experience, having lived the dot-bomb, 9/11, the Great Recession, and Covid, does not feel slow-and-steady; it feels like treading water and then rather suddenly having a credible chance. You put money in slow-and-steady, so that it's invested during those infrequent and unpredictable +20% years. The first year you rack up gains greater than your salary is amazing.
That's a good reminder. Just haven't had one of those years yet. Thanks for the perspective.