Fisher Investments Reviews How Investors Should Think About All-Time Highs

Transcript

Ken Fisher:

So with stocks trading near all time highs, and actually as I'm speaking today, we hit another all time high in the US and global markets, in October 2024. The reality that people ask us, "It's all time highs. What should I do?" And the answer is all time highs don't tell you to do anything. Now what you should do is really more about you than it is about the market. And that's always true.

What you should do is about you. Since all kinds of people listen to this video, I can't speak to that generically. Some people are more prone and educated and interested and active in investing. Some are better at it. Some are worse. Some know very, very little. I can't speak to you directly in those ways, other than to say you should focus on who you are and what is it that you need your money to do for you, and how good do you think you really are at investing? And should you really be making active decisions? Should you be passive? This is a complicated, introspective look that every investor should take and retake over time.

But my point is, bull markets hit new highs on an ongoing basis as soon as they've recovered from the prior bear market and hit their first all time high in that new bull market. And they keep doing that over and over and over again. And then eventually you do get another bear market and then again you get another bull market. The bull markets, not always, but usually are significantly bigger and longer than the bear market—significantly. And yes, I know, I know that if the market's down 20%, it takes more than 20% to get back to the beginning level because of the way simple math works. I got all that. I actually could do math when I was young. Still can a little bit. The fact of the matter is, bear market looks like this bull market typically looks like that. That's really normal. That's the way it works. Stocks rise about two thirds of the time. Hitting new highs doesn't tell you anything about what happens next by itself. Nothing. Nada. Zip.

So the answer to the question is, there isn't anything in particular that you should do because stocks have been hitting all time highs or near all time highs. What you should do is really based on who you are. Thank you for listening. I hope you found this useful. I hope you spend some time thinking about who you are and where that fits into investing, and are comfortable with the outcome of your thinking there. And listen, I hope, to more of my videos moving forward. Thanks again. Appreciate it.

Voice of Ken Fisher:

Hi, this is Ken Fisher. Subscribe to the Fisher Investments YouTube channel if you like what you've seen. Click the bell to be notified as soon as we publish new videos.