Well, friends, we recently had ourselves a bit of a moment here in the old U.S. of A. And no, I'm not talking about the resurgence of the Ice Bucket Challenge, though that is giving me flashbacks to watching Ice Bucket Challenge fails on Vine back in the day. Now, I would like to nominate Vladimir Putin. Simpler times. Today, I'm talking about when the stock market crashed back in April on the heels of President Trump launching his tariff plan.
Some people put on a brave face while others lost their marbles. So in this video, we're going to break down exactly why so many people freaked out when the market dipped or worse pulled their money out and why that was the wrong reaction. You'll also learn what smart investors do during a market
Now, let's start with the facts of exactly what happened. On April 2nd, in the year of our Lord 2025, President Trump announced a series of tariffs on imports from other countries, which basically means he added an extra tax to goods the U.S. brings in from overseas with the goal of driving more business to our spacious skies and amber waves of grain. And while some people were a fan of this move, everyone else, well, hated it.
Among the haters, the fine folks on Wall Street. And after Trump's announcement, the S&P 500 fell by nearly 5%, marking the biggest single-day drop in nearly five years. And it caused a whole lot of panic and chaos, akin to Black Friday doorbuster levels circa 2013. Now, I'll be the first to say that I understand the why behind all of that fear. After all, over half of millennials have more debt than they do retirement savings, and a third of Americans expect to keep working past retirement age because they'll have to.
So when that already undersized nest egg takes an oversized hit, it feels like insult to injury. And it was especially scary for those nearing or in retirement. And to top it all off, freaking out when the stock market dips gets a whole lot easier when you're surrounded by news headlines like these. An exceptionally brutal day on Wall Street. Causing stocks to plummet overnight. The early assessment, deep concerns. Global economic meltdown. Yeah, absolutely.
I'd be scared too if I thought I were facing a global economic meltdown. But here's the deal. A one-day dip in the stock market is not a global economic meltdown. It's not even a sign to stop investing. And it definitely does not mean you should take money out of the stock market. Why? Well, there's three main reasons why it's a bad idea. Reason number one, the stock market always rebounds. Unlike Dave Ramsey's hair, the market has always made a comeback. Love you, Dave. Don't fire me. It was a dumb joke. I'm sorry. I love you.
Somebody ought to smack you. The stock market is always going to dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge. But it's also going to start heading back in the right direction every single time. How do I know? Because that's what's happened throughout the entirety of the stock market's existence. And this time was no different. Let me show you what I mean by taking a quick peek at the good old S&P 500, which tracks the biggest publicly traded companies in the United States. Would you look at that?
Up and to the right. Now we're going to start by looking at the S&P 500 over the last five years. Let me click the five year button. Bada bing, bada boom. That's a wild ride. You can definitely see some ups and downs, including a major dip in 2020 when the world basically shut down and we all walked around looking like bank robbers. But look at what happened next. It came back.
And not just to where it was before, it kept growing beyond that point, up and up and up and up. Now let's zoom out and let's look at the 10-year view. The dips get smaller and the upward trend becomes clearer. You can start to see that even though the market does react to news headlines, it always winds up growing right through them. So let's go even further now to the 20-year view. This one includes 2008, the year of Flo Rida teaching shotties how to get low and the Great Recession, of course. Which one will be immortalized by culture for centuries to come? Neither.
Gen Alpha doesn't give a rip. They ain't reading no history books. They're not going back to the hits from 2008. Now that's what I call music. And it's no surprise that the market dropped hard during one of the worst economic downturns in recent history. That's that giant dip right there. But again, it recovered. Look at that. And not only did it recover, we can see that it more than doubled in value in the years that followed. That's amazing.
Now, let's pull up the all-time view of the S&P 500. This is the biggest picture we can find. All years. Look at that. And once again, we see the stock market always rebounds. It even survived World War II. The government of France didn't even survive World War II. The stock market survived. Us? Not so much. We took one look at the tanks and said, Au revoir, democracy. They may take our government, but they will never take our baguettes. Vive la gluten!
Anyways, over time, the stock market dips become part of a much bigger story of long-term growth. Because there's always going to be another mountain, always going to want to make it move. So if you're feeling uncertain, take heart. The market may lose steam every now and then, but history tells us it always rebounds.
Reason number two, a market dip means stocks are on sale. Here's the hot take. When the market goes down, it's actually good news for investors who have the right mindset. You see, when you take a long-term approach to investing, market dips don't mean your plan is broken. It means stocks are on sale. And you've got to play the long game with this stuff. Here's what I mean. Let's say you're investing $1,000 a month. When the market is high, that $1,000 might buy you, say, 10 shares of a company.
But when the market drops, you may be able to buy, say, 13 shares for that same thousand bucks. It's like a major markdown at your local As Seen on TV store. But instead of Snuggies and Shakeweights, you're getting a discount on ownership in some of the best companies in the world. And Warren Buffett, who's done pretty well in this whole investing game, put it like this, quote, Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. Translation, when everybody is running for the exits, that's your chance to buy.
Reason number three, taking money out will cost you big time. This one is the kicker. If you've ever felt tempted to take your money out of the market when things get rocky, you're not alone. But I need you to hear this clearly. Jumping in and out of the market is one of the most expensive mistakes you can make as an investor. This isn't some flaky situation ship you can bail out of when the vibes are off, all right? You've got to make a commitment here. Let me show you why using numbers from JPMorgan Research.
Let's say that you've invested $10,000 into the S&P 500 at the start of 2005, and you left it alone. No touching, no tweaking, no twerking. You're just hanging on to your butt and riding the wave all the way through to the end of 2024. Your $10,000 would have grown into $71,750.
That is a 10.4% annual average return just by staying invested. But what if you got nervous? What if you pulled your money out and missed just the 10 best days in the market over those 20 years? Well, your return would drop to 6% for missing 10 days. And your balance would be just 33 grand, which is less than half of what you would have had if you just have stayed put.
And it gets worse, because if you missed the 60 best days between 2005 and 2024, your return would be negative, down to negative 3.7%. You'd have just under five grand, which is less than half of what you started with, all because you missed the key days. So the juicy secret here about the stock market, the best days often happen right after the worst days.
that on a motivational poster. Could have gotten me through a lot of hard days in middle school. That's not just a cute quote. That's actually what tends to happen, which means those who stay the course, even when it feels scary, are the ones who build real wealth. So persevere. All right, now you know why you shouldn't run away from the market during a dip. In fact, the only types of dip you should run away from is bean dip. Get out of here with that refried bean. Fry it once. Fry me once, shame on me. Fry me twice, shame on you. So...
You hate Mexican food, huh? All right, enough bean talk. So now I'm going to walk you through what you should do, specifically the three important steps that smart investors take to help them thrive no matter the twists and turns of the market. But first, I've got a big announcement to make. It's a rare day on this channel that we announce a new partner. Now, if you've listened to my other show, Smart Money Happy Hour, you'll recognize these folks. It's the good people at Cozy Earth.
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in the description below. And before I give you the strategy smart investors use to ride the market wave, I wanna give you the strategy I use to protect my data online. And that's by using Delete.me, another sponsor of today's video. Now, most of us have tons of personal data floating around on the internet. And if it falls into the wrong hands, you could get targeted by phishing scams. And those have gotten a lot more sophisticated since the days of, "Hey, this is your CEO and I need an eBay gift card pronto." And that's why Delete.me combs through hundreds of data broker sites to clean up your digital footprint.
And right now you can get 20% off their annual plans, which comes out to about nine bucks a month. So use my special link, go to joindelete.com/george or click the link in the description below. Okay, the moment we've all been waiting for, here's how smart investors handle stock market twists and turns.
First, they buckle up for the ride. We live in a 24/7 news cycle that wants you to be scared of everything. The jobs report, the housing market, the stock market, every market. It's all doom and gloom all the time. So when you notice yourself starting to freak out, ask yourself, what exactly are you afraid of? Is it running out of money in retirement? Inflation? Emergencies? Is it that you're planning to retire soon and the market feels shaky? Once you get to the bottom of why you're actually scared, you can do something about it. Focus on the facts
instead of the fear. Second, smart investors get the facts. You don't need another opinion from a talking head on cable news. You need perspective. And as we've already seen, the facts are clear. The market always rebounds. It's been through wars, recessions, political chaos, the rise and fall of Ben Affleck's personal life, you name it. And every single time, the market came back stronger, just like Ben.
Third, smart investors keep investing. No matter what. Good days, bad days, yesteryears, next year. This is what separates successful investors from everyone else. The haves from the have-nots. The normal adults from the ones who think Harry Potter is cool. You're getting really close to Disney adult, and I'm worried about you. I'm worried. Tell me why you're a Hufflepuff. Because consistency is key when it comes to retirement investing, regardless of whether the market is down or not.
In fact, in the National Study of Millionaires, where we surveyed 10,000 of them, they rated investment consistency as the number two most important trait for building wealth. What about the general population? They only ranked it as number seven behind receiving an inheritance and luck. Yep, that right there is the difference. Normal people panic when the market is down, but the best investors stay calm, stay consistent, and think long-term. So if you want a deeper dive on all things investing, I've got a free guide to investing that will give you the confidence of Nick Jonas at the Met Gala. I'm going
I'm going to drop a link to that investing guide in the description below. So the bottom line, panic is for horror movies and we need to talk techs, not your wealth building strategy. And speaking of building wealth, I recently made this video breaking down how much money you should have in your 401k based on your age. So keep watching to check it out or click the link in the description below. That's it for today. Be sure to hit subscribe if you learned something and hit that like button. We'll see you next time.