Stock Market Crash/Inflation rumorsWho or where is the best place to look for information regarding a Stock Market Crash? Inflation rumors? I am a new investor and do not want to lose my investments due to lack of news.
Thank you
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There is no one place to go that can tell you whether inflation will be a problem in six months, or when the market might crash. You can easily find news articles and opinion pieces predicting a crash every few months for the past decade, but that information doesn’t really do the individual investor any good.
If you can’t afford to see your portfolio fall by at least 20-30%, then you can’t afford to invest in stocks, because that will almost certainly happen every few years (at a minimum, losses could be much higher).
It’s understandable to want to try to avoid a crash, and valuations are so extreme that it may be wise to be conservative at a time when the world is going wild, but you’re never going to sell right before a crash and buy back in at the bottom, so big picture forecasting is mostly just fearmongering entertainment. It sells newsletters and newspapers, but as long as you can invest for the long term before you need to tap your portfolio (5-10 years or more), then it’s mostly just noise.
The thing that has gotten people through inflation the best in the past has been stocks, and the past 50 years also tells us that the best you can usually hope for in a market crash is that you have enough cash to keep buying… and the stomach to not sell near the bottom, when every media outlet will be screaming that the world has come to an end.
Time in the market beats timing the market. Agree with Travis’s advice, nobody has a crystal ball that is clear. Best you can do is make good choices and let your logical side overrule your emotional side when the market goes through its inevitable downturns. The good investments will recover and you will be fine.