Dow Drops, Erasing Year Gains

The Dow Jones industrials dropped 337 points yesterday essentially erasing all the gaines that it made made this year. But I'm not going where you think I'm going with this sermon. Here's where I'm going with it: Who cares?

Markets don't go straight up nor do they go straight down. When we look at historic returns that 3% loss or 14% gain is never a linear progression. In fact as late as last July the stock market wiped out gains for the year by the end of the month. Yet still somehow the market managed to eke out a 13% gain for the year. The stock market is a 15 year proposition. If you're not willing to wait 15 years for that investment, you might want to either re-examine your expectations or re-examine your risk tolerance.