I’m also recently retired (about 18 months ago) and I’m underwater right now with respect to where I was on my retirement date. But I’m staying put. I could easily see this bear market stretching out another 12 months or more, but what else am I going to invest in? I have a Saul-style portfolio and there’s no better companies out there. I had a career in IT, and digital transformation is a long-term trend (10+ years). So I have no doubt that the best companies in the field will produce the greatest gains. It’s only a matter of time. I think Saul is on the money here.
That said, when the market was going up I think I got too much of a rush checking prices daily and seeing all that green, recalculating my % gain for the year. I started loosening my investing discipline and took a few fliers on more speculative stocks (e.g. FUBO, EXPI). I let too much of my happiness depend on wealth creation.
I need to learn to treat the green days and red days equally. To enjoy life regardless of whether the market is up or down. And to have the same approach to investing regardless of how much I’ve made (or lost).
One thing I am doing better now is adjusting my portfolio without price anchoring affecting my decisions. When the market is down so much it’s so easy to hang onto a stock like AFRM or MNDY just because it’s dropped more than others. You think it’s the one that’s going to bounce back the most, right? Well it often doesn’t work that way. I recently adjusted my entire portfolio by considering what I would like to own if I started with 100% cash today. If you can do that it’s very freeing.