The stock market has been a craaaaaaazy rollercoaster ride!
The S&P 500 was at 2882.23 on March 10th, hit a low of 2237.40 on March 23rd, and then returned to 2789.82 on April 9th.
Wild!
If you’ve ever considered timing the market, now’s your chance! You can do it for real or you can just try this one:
Shall We Play A (Market Timing) Game? – “The Market Timing Game simulation is premised on the idea that buying-and-holding index investing and index funds are a no-brainer investment strategy and market timing (i.e. trying to predict market direction and trading accordingly) is a less than optimal strategy. The saying goes “Time in the market not timing the market”. In this simulation, you are given a 3-year market period from sometime in history (between 1950 and 2018) or you can run in Monte Carlo mode (which picks randomly from daily returns in this period) and you start fully invested in the market and can trade out of (and into) the market if you feel like the market will fall (or rise). The goal is to see if you can beat the market index returns.”
28 Moves to Survive (& Thrive) in a Downturn [NfX] – “In most ways, crises are horrible. But know this — crises always end. They are a cyclical part of our market economy and there are black swans that inevitably occur. The only way to build an iconic company is to do things differently. And in a crisis, survival requires being and thinking differently.” This post is for founder and operators of companies but I think there are lessons you can take and apply to your work and life.
And for the last fun article – this may sound crazy but for 11 years, the Soviet Union did away with weekends!
For 11 Years, the Soviet Union Had No Weekends [History Channel] – “For the urban workforce of the Soviet Union, September 29, 1929, was a Sunday like any other—a day of rest after six days of labor. Sunday was the prize at the finish line: a day’s holiday, where people might see family, attend church or clean their homes. But in the eyes of the Soviet government led by Joseph Stalin, Sundays represented a genuine threat to the whirr and hum of industrial progress. For one day in seven, after all, machines sat silent, productivity slumped to zero and people retreated to comforts thought to be contrary to the revolutionary ideal, like family life or religious practice. On the following Sunday, no such collective pause for breath took place. Eighty percent of the workforce were told to go to work; 20 percent to stay home.”
It feels like all our days are weekends now.