Money Psychology 15: Nothing’s free
The key to a lot of things with money is just figuring out what the price is and being willing to pay it. Yes, everything has a price, but not all prices appear on labels.
Similarly, the price of investing success isn’t immediately obvious. It’s not a price tag you can see. It isn’t dollars and cents, but volatility, fear, doubt, uncertainty and regret.
Think of market volatility as a fee, and you'll probably develop the mindset to stick around for long enough for marketing gains to work in your favour.
Netflix stock returned more than 35,000% from 2002 to 2018, but traded below its previous all-time high on 94% of days. Monster Beverage returned 319,000% from 1995 to 2018—among the highest returns in history—but traded below its previous high 95% of the time during that period.
Market returns are never free and never will be. But you’ll usually get what you pay for. The volatility/uncertainty fee—the price of returns—is the cost of admission to get returns greater than low-fee parks like cash and bonds.
[The Psychology of Money: Lessons 15 of 18]
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