Stock market correction or bear market/crash? Either way I bailed.

What did markets fall by from April 2015 to circa April 2016?

Circa 25% as I understand it.

There seems to be more money to be made by selling oneself as a doomsday merchant rather than an optimist.

The most important thing is one’s time horizon. For most people, it’s far longer than they think. And in reality, the long term investor never loses if he or she is diversified. As the saying goes, time in the market trumps timing the market...
 
joe sod said:
There was a fairly big correction at start of 2016, if you remember, there was alot of doomsday stuff then and it felt real.
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My shares were still so idle that I don’t remember that well sorry…

Gordon Gekko said:
The most important thing is one’s time horizon. For most people, it’s far longer than they think. And in reality, the long term investor never loses if he or she is diversified. As the saying goes, time in the market trumps timing the market...
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I completely agree.

Thank you all!
 
The Dow down 2.5% today , its the worst week in 2 years, maybe this is the start of long awaited correction.
 
joe sod said:
The Dow down 2.5% today , its the worst week in 2 years, maybe this is the start of long awaited correction.
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I would agree at this stage. Too much adrenalin in all the markets in all these months. Also Trump reenacting the "cold war" with the last declarations is just adding to the overall hardening of conversations which got started with USD weakening in some kind of export-battles with other countries. My suggestion is to fasten our seatbelts and for the long term investors like myself to get more spiritual for a while and less mathematical... Personally I just pray that no mad man starts looking at a nuclear button...:(
 
Yea you right to wait for a bit, 2.5% is a big whack you forget when it hasn't happened in a while, I dont think its going to be a big correction , I think market just wanted an excuse to sell off, there was no real negative stuff actually, it was just that there has been an unbelievable run in the stock market over the last few months. But you never know whats around the corner
 
the u.s market is still a good bit above where it was the 1st of january , the european stoxx 600 is still nearly 10% below its spring 2015 high , it actually appears to be a waste of time owning european indexes as they always follow the u.s market down yet rarely ever match it on the way up so you might as well just own american indexes ! , im not saying there are no good european companies but the overall european market is nearly always trailing regardless of how expensive the american one is , even with the dollar having fallen to much v the euro this past year , a eurozone citizen was better having simply bought the S+ P

im beginning to see the picture clearer that americans have a huge advantage in terms of building wealth through equities than someone in ireland even you put aside how the irish government penalises the owning of equities full stop ! , if the dollar is going down , the u.s stock market loves it , if europes economy is doing badly , the european stock market is sluggish , if the european economy picks up , the euro rises and this hurts european equities
 
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Thats an interesting post Galway. Is it still true if you look at the US market in Euro terms.
 
Sarenco said:
Nope. In Euro terms, Eurozone Stocks materially outperformed US Stocks in 2017.
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the european market is still nearly 7% below its april 2015 high , imagine if the s + p or dow were 7% below the april 2015 high ? ,( now i realise european markets have the uk as the dominant contributor and the huge drop in sterling is a major contributor but eurozone citizens really suffer from a strong euro )
 
What I care about is the long-term total return on my investments, as expressed in my home currency.

Whether any particular index is above or below its previous high is of no consequence to me.
 
galway_blow_in said:
the european market is still nearly 7% below its april 2015 high , imagine if the s + p or dow were 7% below the april 2015 high ? ,( now i realise european markets have the uk as the dominant contributor and the huge drop in sterling is a major contributor but eurozone citizens really suffer from a strong euro )
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Actually, Eurozone markets are still down about 33% from their May 2000 peak. The S&P is up about 88% in the same period.
 
PMU said:
Actually, Eurozone markets are still down about 33% from their May 2000 peak. The S&P is up about 88% in the same period.
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I get really irritated by people saying things like this without showing where they are getting their info from. Is the above true, or even a reasonable attempt at the truth.

So I did my own research. Here is what I found.

Eurostoxx 50, August 2000 1,521, today 3,525, an increase of 132%

S&P 500, March 2000 1,527, today 2,762 an increase of 81%. The Eurozone/USD exchange rate averaged 1 Eur to 0.94 USD in March 2000. Today 1 Eur is 1.23. So in Euro terms the S&P has gone from 1624 to 2245 or an increase of 27%

The reason I choose two different start dates is because both were market high points for the year 2000.

My conclusion is that the Eurostoxx 50 has hugely outperformed the S&P since 2000.

If I have misunderstood anything I shall be glad to be corrected.

Exchange rates https://tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/currency

Eurostoxx 50 https://www.investing.com/indices/eu-stoxx50-chart

S&P https://www.investing.com/indices/us-spx-500-historical-data
 
PMU said:
Actually, Eurozone markets are still down about 33% from their May 2000 peak. The S&P is up about 88% in the same period.
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well im only looking at the VEUR etf which incorporates the uk and switzerland too , while this etf outperformed the s + p in euro terms in 2017 , nearly all the gains were in the first quarter of 2017 , its lagged the s + p ( in euro terms ) considerably this past eight months , due no doubt to the runaway euro exchange rate
 
Sarenco said:
What I care about is the long-term total return on my investments, as expressed in my home currency.

Whether any particular index is above or below its previous high is of no consequence to me.
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no matter what time frame you use , long or short , you will do as well and usually better by simply owning the s + p

even in 2018 , the s + p beats the veur etf in euro terms , the s + p is marginally green while the european wide fund is down so far this year , if you go back five years using the ishares IMEU etf ( as vanguards veur is less than five years around ) , your up 32% in euro terms using that european market tracker , if you bought the ishares etf IUSA ( tracking the s + p in euro ) , your up 103%

  1. go back even further to ten years and the gulf is worse again , if you bought the s + p tracking IUSA , you are up 139 % , had you stuck your money in the european tracking etf IMEU , your up a meagre 15.88 %
 
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cremeegg said:
I get really irritated by people saying things like this without showing where they are getting their info from. Is the above true, or even a reasonable attempt at the truth.

So I did my own research. Here is what I found.

Eurostoxx 50, August 2000 1,521, today 3,525, an increase of 132%

S&P 500, March 2000 1,527, today 2,762 an increase of 81%. The Eurozone/USD exchange rate averaged 1 Eur to 0.94 USD in March 2000. Today 1 Eur is 1.23. So in Euro terms the S&P has gone from 1624 to 2245 or an increase of 27%

The reason I choose two different start dates is because both were market high points for the year 2000.

My conclusion is that the Eurostoxx 50 has hugely outperformed the S&P since 2000.

If I have misunderstood anything I shall be glad to be corrected.

Exchange rates https://tradingeconomics.com/euro-area/currency

Eurostoxx 50 https://www.investing.com/indices/eu-stoxx50-chart

S&P https://www.investing.com/indices/us-spx-500-historical-data
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you think the euro stoxx 50 has outperformed the s + p since 2000 ?

nonesense !
 
galway_blow_in said:
no matter what time frame you use , long or short , you will do as well and usually better by simply owning the s + p
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Sorry Galway but that is simply untrue.

By way of example, Eurozone stocks outperformed US stocks, in Euro terms, (a) over the decade beginning in 2000; (b) over the last 12 months; and (c) year to date.

Of course that tells us absolutely nothing about what is going to happen in the future. All we can say is there have been periods in the past where Eurozone Stocks have outperformed US stocks and vice versa.

I don't pretend to know more than the market so I just hold Eurozone and US shares at (roughly) their market cap weight.
 
Sarenco said:
Sorry Galway but that is simply untrue.

By way of example, Eurozone stocks outperformed US stocks, in Euro terms, (a) over the decade beginning in 2000; (b) over the last 12 months; and (c) year to date.

Of course that tells us absolutely nothing about what is going to happen in the future. All we can say is there have been periods in the past where Eurozone Stocks have outperformed US stocks and vice versa.

I don't pretend to know more than the market so I just hold Eurozone and US shares at (roughly) their market cap weight.
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im currently holding two ETF,s which combine europe including the uk and japan , the strong japanese performance is the only thing which has left me up about 3% since last july , had i just bought the VT world fund , id be up more , that fund is at least 50% u.s so when i factor in the u.s stronger performance the majority of the time , i think im going to switch over to this single all encompassing etf , i still get european and japan exposure anyway , i had this idea last july that it was inevitable that europe would eventually do better than the u.s but ive yet to see a morning in europe where the markets were up following a close in the red on wall street

europe only follows , it never leads !
 
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The FTSE Eurozone index has materially outperformed the FTSE All World index over the past 12 months when measured in Euro.

12 months is really just a blink of an eye when it comes to measuring the performance of any equity index but it is simply untrue to suggest that Eurozone equities have been perennial under-performers.

Again, the past is not prologue but I agree that holding stocks at something close to their market cap weight is a good strategy.
 
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