A message from 3rd Decade’s Executive Director, Scott Bennett:
Hello 3rd Decade Community,
We’ve had a handful of participants reach out to us and we know that there is a lot of fear and tension right now surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak. If the fear of yourselves or your loved ones getting sick wasn’t enough, the markets have reacted erratically with sharp dips and volatility, creating more uncertainty. Although participants of the 3rd Decade are young and most have a very long time until retirement, seeing your long term investments plummet in such a manner has some asking questions like, “When should I take my money out?”, “Can I time this to take advantage of the low market?”, and “Should I be investing at all?”.
We wanted to take this opportunity to share some of our thinking around these questions. If you sat through any of our classes, met with our mentors, or even just read a few of our blog posts, you probably have a good idea with what we think the best course of action is moving forward – nothing. We in no way want to downplay the emotions and panic some are feeling, but the fact is, the proven strategy over and over in times like this is to allow the market to correct itself as it always has.
To add some context to this thinking, I’ve included a letter that our founder, Bob Swift, wrote to all of his clients about 10 years ago – you can see this here. At the time, the markets had taken a sharp dip and there was quite a lot of panic and misinformation being spread (sound familiar?). Even though this letter was written 10 years ago, if you didn’t know that, you’d have no idea. If you’ll remember, Bob founded TCI Wealth before he founded the TCI Foundation and the 3rd Decade, so although the letter is addressed to TCI Wealth clients and talks about the culture and beliefs of TCI, those same beliefs are shared by the 3rd Decade.
We hope this is helpful to quell some of the anxiety on the investing side of these uneasy times. We also want everyone to know that we’re here to field your questions or talk through some of our thinking, so if you have a 3rd Decade mentor, reach out to them, or you can reach out to me directly at [email protected].