I’m at Future Proof this week with 4,000 friends in the financial advice space. Here’s a look back at the most popular post in A Wealth of Common Sense history.
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In 2014 I wrote a piece called What If You Only Invested at Market Peaks?
It’s hard to believe it now, but many investors assumed after a massive 30%+ run-up in the S&P 500 in 2013 that a peak was imminent.
So I decided to simply run the numbers as a thought exercise on the results of an investor who only invested their money at market peaks, just before a market crash.
I was more curious than anything and unsure about what the results would show. They were surprisingly better than expected.
I didn’t put much thought into this piece but it has become by far the most widely read piece of content I’ve ever written. It’s been read nearly a million times.
It still gets hundreds of thousands of page views a year.
I used this example in my book A Wealth of Common Sense but have always thought this story would be even better with visuals.
So with the help of our producer, Duncan Hill, I found an illustrator who could turn my story about the world’s worst market timer into a cartoon.
I updated some of the numbers, did some voiceover work, got the illustration just how we wanted it and had Duncan put it all together.
Here’s the finished product:
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Most people who read my original piece understand it’s simply a story used to get across the importance of having a long-term mindset about investing.
But there has been plenty of pushback as well.
What about Japan?
What if stock returns aren’t as good going forward?
What if the world comes to an
