Does Your Portfolio Have To Crash With The Market? Ep. 107

In my twenties I loved riding and racing bicycles! Most of my races were on a closed circuit that was less than a mile long. The race would go around the closed loop for anywhere from 45 minutes or an hour.

This kind of racing gets fast! My strategy was to stay in the front third of the group of racers and then in the last lap sprint to the finish. 

During that hour leading up to the finish it’s a fight to survive and not crash. Every race was an adrenaline rush, but a few of them stand out as extra memorable. The races I won are enjoyable to reminisce about, but that’s only half of the picture. Unfortunately, the ones I crashed in tend to be stamped in my mind due to the physical pain they induced.

Many of these races were in downtown settings as they naturally had turns and were easy to create a circuit. My friend Phillip and I had driven to downtown Roanoke, Virginia, for a race one summer. I was hanging in the top third of the racers. Everything seemed to be going my way until I made a turn to the right and my pedal scraped the ground. This sent me to the ground with a big thud. 

Normally, if you can get to the wheel change area, you can get back in the race when something like this happens. Fortunately, I wasn’t injured and was able to get back in the race. I ended up  placing eighth in the sprint finish. 

Some people in the market have had it going their way until this year, but the market has made a turn. Some savers have been beaten up a little, but they may be okay if they have enough time to recover their losses. At this point they may feel like they can stay in it and live to see another day. But if they’re taking income off their positions they may be really hurting in this down market.

Later in the year Phillip and I traveled to downtown Salisbury, North Carolina, for a race. It was close to where I grew up so my parents came out to watch. They were standing just beyond the finish line. This race course was like a figure eight where on both ends of the course we navigated a small city block and then there was a wide-open stretch in between each square to race back and forth to. This allowed the race to generate a swift pace because it was essentially a sprint to each corner.

I had just upgraded to a more advanced level of competition and this race was fast! I found myself not meeting my goal of staying in the top third of the riders.  A few laps into the race I was on the outside of the road to the right. We were turning left. 

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