I wrote my post I’m all in…get ready for the big correction! about six months ago. The S&P 500 Index stood at at 1,883.95 then. Right now, its sitting at 2,031.95, an 8% increase. With a 8% cushion, I feel pretty good that I can survive a 5% drop and even a 10% at this point would be palatable. I already had to endure two sharp downturns, one that took me about 20 points below my starting point–that wasn’t fun. Still, I kept to my guns and felt that there was no fundamental reason for stocks to hold their lows and, sure enough, the markets bounced right back.
This all brings me to the point of this post. I can handle a reasonably large correction because I got in. You can’t do this if you sit on the sidelines waiting. The doom and gloomers are going to be right…someday. They will be gloating with a big I told you so. What they won’t mention is the gains the market had while they spouted off their doomsday predictions. Personally, I want to be sitting on a big gain to weather the storm. Heck, if we can come back from 2008, we can come back from anything!