If we take the 6th of March—the last trading day before the March 9 fall—then the market is down 12.2%, which is already in ‘correction’ territory, and an extremely rapid descent by historical standards.
If we take the 16th of March—the closest trading day we have to ‘mid-March’—the market is already down 29.5% per cent, which is not too far off the bottom, and well and truly into ‘bear’ territory.
To be clear, I think time has proven you correct about the EMH (and this is easy for you to say, now that the market has stabilized).
I thought the talk about EMH being dead was weird at the time, and left a comment saying as much. I also wrote a post on March 24, which later turned out to be the bottom, saying that timing the market was a really bad idea, and the buy-and-hold forever strategy was about the best anyone could hope for. I am as surprised about the speed of the rebound as anyone! I possess no predictive powers, but I have consistently been defending boring orthodoxy.
I admire and respect you very much as a person and a thinker—seriously man, you have no idea—so I feel extremely bad if I have made you feel bad. I didn’t mean to accuse you specifically of being a revisionist historian—it was more of a general vibe that seemed to be happening a lot—and although I think the passage as stated is misleading, I don’t think it’s deliberately so, and I’ve edited the post so it comes off as less accusatory.
Hi Scott,
If we take the 6th of March—the last trading day before the March 9 fall—then the market is down 12.2%, which is already in ‘correction’ territory, and an extremely rapid descent by historical standards.
If we take the 16th of March—the closest trading day we have to ‘mid-March’—the market is already down 29.5% per cent, which is not too far off the bottom, and well and truly into ‘bear’ territory.
I thought the talk about EMH being dead was weird at the time, and left a comment saying as much. I also wrote a post on March 24, which later turned out to be the bottom, saying that timing the market was a really bad idea, and the buy-and-hold forever strategy was about the best anyone could hope for. I am as surprised about the speed of the rebound as anyone! I possess no predictive powers, but I have consistently been defending boring orthodoxy.
I admire and respect you very much as a person and a thinker—seriously man, you have no idea—so I feel extremely bad if I have made you feel bad. I didn’t mean to accuse you specifically of being a revisionist historian—it was more of a general vibe that seemed to be happening a lot—and although I think the passage as stated is misleading, I don’t think it’s deliberately so, and I’ve edited the post so it comes off as less accusatory.