Bear markets in context 🐻

Take a deep breath and look to the big picture 🧘🏻‍♂️

The stock market has plummeted to bear market levels.

In early trading on Monday, the S&P 500 fell as much as 4.7% to 4,835.04.

If the S&P closes below 4,915.32 today (or in the near future), it will be down 20% from its February 19 closing high of 6,144.15. This would confirm we officially entered a bear market¹ at that high, and the bull market that started on October 12, 2022, officially ended.

Clearly, the financial markets do not approve of President Trump’s tariff policy. More on what tariffs mean here, here, here, and here.

As I’ve written on Friday and Sunday, it’ll be very tempting to trade in and out of this market in an attempt to improve returns. And some will find some success in doing so. But the risk of getting it wrong is very high, which could do irreversible damage to your potential long-term returns.

That said, I think now’s a great time to take a deep breath, step back, and zoom out and reflect on history.