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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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You picked wrong stocks, calling "Apple" as "very safe stock" is absolutely off the mark. To me it seems that you invested into a lot of tech stocks and you now see losses after they got massacred. I have majority of my investment in MSCI World Accumulating ETF and this is the result.

Value on 09/18/2019 was EUR 53.11 and value on 09/16/2022 is EUR 72.28 which accounts for average 10.81% yearly returns over last three years. The big COVID drop as well as recent drop barely registered for me, the overall investment performs very well so far.

However I also disagree that people do not talk about this. In fact even mainstream media report on large stock drops, if anything they report negative news, but do not report on increases - except in negative terms of "overheating" or "bubble" and so forth. This is why they are always happy if their doomsday scenario pans out for a week or a month.

The big COVID drop as well as recent drop barely registered for me

It looks like the closing price was 60.56 on Feb 19, 2020, and then it dropped to 41.65 at the close on March 18. That is about a 33% drop. The Vanguard SP500 index ETF closed at 298.88 on 2/19 and dropped to a closing low of 197, also about 33%. And, on 9/18/2019, the Vanguard ETF closed at 263, versus 355 on Friday, 1 35% gain, versus the 36% gain for your ETF. Looking at the chart, your ETF seems to basically follow the SP 500 over the last 5 yrs, but perhaps with a bit less volatility. It has a higher cost (0.20 %) than VOO (0.03%), but that might not matter much.

PS: Your annual gain is actually a bit less -- 10.27% per this formula: 72.28 = 53.11e^(3*x)

It looks like the closing price was 60.56 on Feb 19, 2020, and then it dropped to 41.65 at the close on March 18. That is about a 33% drop.

Yes, this is the infamous COVID drop many people "bragged" about how they managed to time their shorts. Only then many of those people continued to short the stocks "knowing" that COVID will be even worse and that markets will crash completely any time soon. Except the rest of the year stocks experienced strong growth that basically erased all the losses by the end of the year and the growth continued for the whole 2021 as well. Some people lost all they gained in February/March and then some. I am strongly against timing this stuff, I did not lose the nerve during the drop - I actually bough a little bit more as usual.

PS: Your annual gain is actually a bit less -- 10.27% per this formula: 72.28 = 53.11e^(3*x)

My formula was (72.28/53.11)^(-3). It also works backwards when you calculate 53.11(1.1081)^3 = 72.262. There is of course some rounding error. Also my gains were in EUR and it benefited from lately stronger dollar. In dollar terms the ETF had around 7.6% annual return, which is more then reasonable.

It has a higher cost (0.20 %) than VOO (0.03%), but that might not matter much.

Yes, it is literally World ETF so it also holds some Emerging Markets which results in slightly higher expense ratio. But in my eyes it is worth it, no need to construct some complicated portfolio rebalancing it all the time and losing money on fees.

Your formula doesn’t account for compounding. It wont work well over long periods.

Edit;oops am on small screen and read that as /3. Yeah i think your formula is close enough