Our “Get Invested” series is a simple yet powerful resource designed to help anyone understand why investing in stocks for the long term is one of the best financial decisions they can make.  The slide below from our Get Invested piece is titled “Be Greedy When Others Are Fearful.”

One of Warren Buffett’s most famous quotes is to “be greedy when others are fearful.”  Unfortunately, many anxious investors can’t stomach losses in the stock market, causing them to go to “all cash” at exactly the wrong times.  Take large declines, for example.  Since WW2, the S&P 500 has fallen more than 15% in nine different quarters.  Following every single instance, the index was higher a year later with an average one-year gain of 25.1%.  Similarly, the S&P 500 has had two-quarter drops of 20%+ just eight times, and over the next year, the index was up by at least 17% with gains every single time.

If you have any questions about our Get Invested resource, please email us or give us a call at 914-315-1248.  You can view the full piece by becoming a Bespoke client.

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Welcome to Bespoke Brunch Reads — a linkfest of some of our favorite articles over the past week. The links are mostly market-related, but there are some other interesting subjects covered as well. We hope you enjoy the food for thought as a supplement to the research we provide you during the week.

Oh, the Places You’ll Go: On March 2, 1904, Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, was born. His impact on generations of readers cannot be overstated. Books like The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham introduced millions of children to reading through simple vocabulary, rhythmic patterns, and engaging illustrations. Beyond literacy, Dr. Seuss infused his stories with profound social and moral messages. The Lorax warned about environmental destruction long before it was a widespread concern, while Horton Hears a Who! told a story of compassion and the importance of standing up for others. Dr. Seuss’s influence extends beyond the pages of his books. His legacy continues through initiatives like Read Across America Day, which is celebrated annually on his birthday and promotes early childhood literacy. His stories have been adapted into films, TV specials, and stage productions.

A& & Technology

AI cracks superbug problem in two days that took scientists years (BBC)
An AI tool from Google just cracked a microbiology mystery in 48 hours, a problem that took human scientists a decade to solve. Given only a short prompt, the AI independently reached the same conclusion about how superbugs spread, even though the research hadn’t been published anywhere. It confirmed the hypothesis and even suggested four additional ideas, one of which the research team is now pursuing, leading Professor José R. Penadés to call it a game-changer for science. [Link]

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Our “Get Invested” series is a simple yet powerful resource designed to help anyone understand why investing in stocks for the long term is one of the best financial decisions they can make.  The slide below from our Get Invested piece is titled “Ignore the Noise.”

It’s hard to avoid monitoring the day-to-day action of the market when your hard-earned money is at stake, but for money that’s invested for the long-term, it’s best to try and ignore the noise.

The left chart below shows daily closing prices for the S&P 500 since the start of 2023.  The right chart shows the S&P 500’s average daily closing price over the prior 200 trading days over the same time frame.  Ignoring the daily ups and downs of the market and focusing on the longer-term trend is a helpful way to reduce unforced anxiety and potential disruptions to a buy and hold strategy.

If you have any questions about our Get Invested resource, please email us or give us a call at 914-315-1248.  You can view the full piece by becoming a Bespoke client.

Click here to learn more about Bespoke’s wealth management services.

Through yesterday’s close, the S&P 500’s average daily performance during the second Trump administration has been a decline of 0.8%. The magnitude of the declines hasn’t been spread out evenly across each of those days.  The chart below shows the S&P 500’s daily performance on every trading day since the inauguration, and we have also highlighted Mondays and Fridays in red. The days surrounding the weekend have been notably weak. Of the nine Friday and Monday sessions since 1/21, the S&P 500 has traded lower eight times for a median decline of 0.5%. These are some pretty weak numbers, but in the early days of this administration, we have seen no shortage of Friday afternoon and weekend headlines that the market has been forced to adjust to.

It’s still extremely early in this administration, so the extreme weakness of the market on Fridays and Mondays could easily shift, but we found it interesting how much these numbers differ from average weekday performance under President Biden. During his four years in office, Friday and Monday were easily the best days of the trading week, with average gains of 9.8 bps and 8.5 bps, respectively. Just like in life, for the markets, no news is sometimes good news, and unlike the first few weeks of the second Trump Administration, weekends during the Biden Administration tended ot be quiet from Friday afternoons through early Monday.

Our “Get Invested” series is a simple yet powerful resource designed to help anyone understand why investing in stocks for the long term is one of the best financial decisions they can make.  The slide below from our Get Invested piece is titled “Don’t Sleep on Dividends.”

Owning the “market” through a “buy and hold” strategy of an ETF like SPY (that tracks the S&P 500) means you’ll capture the dividend yield of the market as well.  Over time, those dividends really add up.  Since 1993 when the first S&P 500 ETF (SPY) began trading, nearly half of the index’s 2,390% total return has come from capturing and reinvesting quarterly dividend payouts.

If you have any questions about our Get Invested resource, please email us or give us a call at 914-315-1248.  You can view the full piece by becoming a Bespoke client.

Click here to learn more about Bespoke’s wealth management services.