Grateful for the stock market

But I guess the takeaway from what, like, what is the big, broad lesson from 2020, is that we need humility and therefore room for error in our finances, because if everyone knew exactly what the economy and the stock market was going to do next, which is broadly what it was going to do next, we could be able to have, you know, quite a bit of leverage in our finances in terms of we would have most of our assets in stocks, we would know when to get in, when to get out, but we don't, and no one does and no one ever will. The most important events that move the stock market or the economy are always the things that no one can see coming, it's not that they didn't see it coming because they weren't smart enough, it's that things that are just literally impossible to see coming, like, say, the timing of a pandemic or things like Sept. 11th, like, the timing of the financial crisis in 2008, no one could have known when those things were going to come, and therefore, it's just so important to have room for error.

And what I mean by that is just, by and large, a sufficient level of cash and bonds in your portfolio. So that when the market does go through something like this, when the market falls 35% in a month like it did in March, that you are reducing the odds as low as you can of having to sell stocks at an inopportune time. That single thing, I think, is the most important variable for how you would do as an investor over the course of your lifetime is how low can you keep the odds that you'll ever be forced to sell the stocks you own to as low as possible.

Charlie Munger has a great quote that I love about this, he says, the first rule of compounding is to never interrupt it unnecessarily. And that's what I think this is all about, it's like, you want room for error in your finances. And, yes, the cash and the bonds that you own are going to earn a lower return than stocks that you own most of the time. But if those cash and bonds can prevent you from being forced to sell in inopportune times, whether that is a job loss or a medical emergency or you just get scared during a recession or during a pandemic than that is going to allow the stocks that you do own to compound over time to the greatest degree.

So, that's when you get into, like, this barbell personality of, I want to be a pessimist in the short run, but an optimist in the long run. And that seems like it's a contradiction, but it's not. I want to be so pessimistic about the short run that I have cash and room for error that is going to make sure, and it's going to allow me to be an optimist in the long run and never be forced to sell the stocks that I do own.