A pretty cool realization hit me while reading The Great Depression: A Diary by Benjamin Roth.
It’s a fantastic book based on the personal diary of a lawyer from Youngstown, PA, who lived through the Great Depression and shared his firsthand account in real-time.
The bottom of the Great Depression was in the summer of 1932, almost three years after the stock market crash in October 1929.
But Americans in the summer and fall of 1932 couldn’t know this, and everyone wanted a change.
Americans were uncertain.
In November of 1932, the incumbent Republican president, Herbert Hoover, was defeated in a landslide by New York Democrat governor Franklin D. Roosevelt and his promise of a “New Deal.”
After the election, a majority of Americans became confident and optimistic.
Certainty was returning.
I realized that when people think they know what will happen, they are calm and certain.
But because of trillions of possibilities that can influence trillions of outcomes, no human knows what tomorrow brings.
Certainty is an illusion.
The stock market performs poorly when there is uncertainty about what tomorrow will bring.
But those uncertain times can bring us amazing buying opportunities – if you have conviction, courage, and liquid capital.
So when the unexpected happens, think, “I’ve been expecting you.”
Thanks for reading, and I’ll talk to you soon.
Russ Knopf
