What Has Transpired After Market Peaks: 1928-2017
Over this 90 year period, there were 1,144 market peaks, an average of one a month. So you do not have to wait long for the next peak to be enjoyed. One a month is roughly the pace at which I climbed mountains during Colorado summers when I was younger. Climbing mountains and achieving new market highs produced roughly the same pattern of enjoyment for me.
Market The Beautiful
The lyrics for America the Beautiful were written by Katharine Lee Bates in 1895, a year before the launch of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, after she stood gazing east from the top of Pikes Peak, a mountain I have climbed many times. As I revel in each new market peak as an indication of success in my equity portfolio and the market overcoming potentially debilitating obstacles, I wonder if there is a song somewhere in here.
To celebrate the over 1,000 new peaks since 1928, could a song be written with the title Market the Beautiful? Maybe this would begin altering investor perception of market peaks as something to enjoy rather than as something to fear.
C. Thomas Howard, Ph.D., is an emeritus professor of finance at the University of Denver and chief investment officer at AthenaInvest of Greenwood Village. He is the author of Behavioral Portfolio Management. Please feel free to contact me if you compose the song Market the Beautiful, as much to my chagrin I have no talent for such an endeavor.