Bubble

Trouble

1966 to 1978

Only those who experienced the heady euphoria of the late 1990s dot-com bubble in tech stocks know what the shift from “can’t lose” confidence to “can’t win” surrender feels like. The chart below illustrates this emotional cycle of confidence rising and fading as bubbles inflate and deflate.

The drift from “can’t lose” to “can’t win” is slow and painful. Our beliefs are stubborn, and we cling on to what worked in the past long after it stopped working. Even if an AI program advises selling everything and walking away from the market for five years, how many of us would take this advice? History says: very few.

The real losses were even bleaker the next time the DJIA again closed above 1,000 on October 12,1982. Investors who held their index portfolios from the peak in 1966 to 1982 lost two-thirds of the purchasing power of their investment. They would not be made whole until the DJIA rose well above 3,000.