Investor Corner/Staying the course/Closing Mindset Pieces
6.1.6 The Long Game
Most of the wealth created by equity investing over the long run comes from a relatively small number of especially strong years. Staying invested through the dull, uneventful and occasionally painful stretches in between is the real, underappreciated skill.
Why a small number of years matter so much
Analysis of long-run market history consistently shows that a disproportionate share of total return comes from a relatively small number of exceptionally strong years, often clustered unpredictably rather than evenly spread across the whole period. An investor who was not fully invested during those specific years, for whatever reason, would have missed a meaningful share of the total long-run gain.
Why staying invested is harder than it sounds
The years between those standout periods can feel genuinely uneventful, or at times actively uncomfortable, particularly during a prolonged sideways stretch or a difficult multi-year downturn. It is precisely during these less exciting periods that the temptation to exit and wait for a clearer, more comfortable signal tends to be strongest, even though exiting is exactly what risks missing the eventual strong recovery.
The practical implication
Since it is genuinely difficult to identify in advance which specific years will turn out to be the exceptionally strong ones, the more reliable approach for most long-term investors is simply staying invested continuously through both the exciting years and the dull ones, rather than trying to selectively participate only in the years that end up mattering most.
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