investments

The neighbors have a shiny new sport utility vehicle to tow their travel trailer. They take a two-week tropical vacation every winter. Their family room is equipped with the latest large screen TV and surround sound stereo system. Many people believe this is a sign of wealth. In fact, this is usually a sign of consumption.

More often than not, the above lifestyle is funded with huge amounts of debt.

When their investment savings plummeted in the 2001 stock market crash, Adam and Sonya were concerned, but not panicked. Retirement was a long way out, so they had plenty of time to recover. The couple decided to try their hand at 'timing the market' (buying and selling stocks based on expected market fluctuations) to recover their losses. "We thought that if we stayed on top things and could chart when the market would go up and down, we could make our money back," says Adam.

With the December market correction in both the US, Canada and elsewhere slowly receding into the past, it is a good time to review what exactly happened and how clients have reacted to the recent events.

To put December into context, it was the most severe correction late in the year since the early 1930's. The market valuations improved dramatically as a result of the correction with Price\Earnings (P\E) multiplies falling by 5 points, which is the most in about 25 years and has happened only about 5 times in history.

If your way of assessing the state of the world is only through stories gleaned from the regular media, then you are likely missing out on all the marvelous and wondrous advancements of human society over the previous years and decades.

With news reports during the final months of 2018 focusing on market volatility and US budget problems, it has become very easy for investors to focus their attention mostly on short term and transitory issues.