Actually, I don’t worry a lot about market swings—although sometimes I worry that clients may be needlessly concerned. Frankly, I enjoy market declines because they usually give me an opportunity to take advantage of temporary bargains. For example, picture two ways the S&P 500 could be up 10 percent over the course of a year. One way would be for the S&P 500 to steadily climb at a 10 percent annualized rate. The other would be for this index to fall first and then climb to finish the year 10 percent higher than where it started. As far as I’m concerned, I prefer the second case because during the decline I should be able to take advantage of the swing so that we perform better—over the long run—than if the index had climbed steadily without a dip.
Aug 1996