We at Kramer Wealth Managers want to provide some brief comments about the stock market and the volatility we have seen lately. Yes, we know it has declined quite a bit recently. We want to remind everyone that stock market volatility is normal. During these times, people often wonder if they should take their money out of the market or just leave it alone. It causes a lot of uncertainty. I want to share with you some data from Fidelity Research.

If you had invested a hypothetical $10,000 on January 1, 1980 in the stock market and held your investment until March 31, 2020 without touching it, your hypothetical investment would be worth $697,421.

If over that same period of time, you had missed the five best days in the market- meaning the five days where the market increased by the most- that would cause your value at the end of the period to be significantly less. Missing those five best day s would result in your hypothetical $10,000 growing to $432,411; that’s a big drop from $697,421.

Now what if you had missed the 10 best days in the market? The results would be $313,377. And if you had missed the best 30 days, you’d have $115,481.

Finally, missing the best 50 days, you’d have only $48,484. You can see what a big difference it can make. So we want to encourage you to consider just leaving the investments alone and riding it out. Remember that stock market volatility is completely normal and investing is for the long-term and we shouldn’t focus on the short-term.