The Whole Package: Six Years Inside Twenty-Five

As we close out 2025, I can say with confidence that the past six years—and really, the first twenty-five years of this century—will go down as one of the greatest teachable moments in modern investing history. There hasn’t been another period in my 35-year career more packed with shocks, fear, and uncertainty than what we’ve just lived through. Yet, what happened during these years offers a lesson every long-term investor needs to internalize given the many – and likely different – shocks investors will have to navigate successfully over the next decades.

Six Years of Unthinkable Events

Let’s start with the recent stretch:

• 2020: A once-in-a-century plague precipitating an unprecedented 34% market decline in just 33 days. The global economy completely shut down for the greater part of the next year, also unprecedented.

• 2022: Inflation spiked to 40-year highs, the Fed raised interest rates at the fastest and steepest pace in history, and Russia invaded Ukraine. The S&P 500 fell 25%.

• 2025: An intraday tariff tantrum knocked markets down 20%.

Three shocks in six years, roughly one every two years. The S&P 500 responded by more than doubling from about 3,200 in January 2020 to nearly 6,900 today, for an annualized return of about 15.5% per year. Every decline was temporary. Every catastrophist headline is now in the trash bin of history. The permanent premium return of equities (7% after-inflation) versus bonds (3% after-inflation) has endured.

Twenty-Five Years of Perspective

Now, let’s zoom out and look at the seven major shocks investors had to navigate during the first quarter-century of this millennium:

• 2000-2002 - The dot-com collapse, which halved the S&P 500. About midway through the collapse -- Enron, named the most innovative company in America by, to quote Nick Murray, “the brain-dead editors of Fortune magazine” -- ceased to exist, because it never really existed in the first place. In the face of the greatest accounting fraud in history, investors woke up and realized there were no accounting numbers they could trust. The S&P 500 shed 50%.

• 2008-2009 - The global financial crisis saw the entire global financial system shut down, triggered by risky lending practices – for example, allowing buyers to buy homes with only 10% downpayments and without having to provide verification of income. The S&P 500 declined by 60%.

• 2011 -The European debt scare lasted several months, during which it seemed as if the world’s second most important currency could cease to exist. Many Americans believed “we are safe here with our dollar.” Then, right in the middle of the crisis, Standard and Poor’s downgraded the sovereign debt of the US government for the first and only time since Alexander Hamilton was the Treasury secretary. The S&P 500 fell 20% from May through October.

• 2018 - The US debt-ceiling drama. It was the holiday season of 2018, and Santa Claus was coming to town -- until he wasn’t. A congressional impasse regarding the debt ceiling led to a government shutdown on Christmas Eve that lasted a record of 35 days (a record recently broken). The S&P 500 declined 20%.

• 2020 - The pandemic panic.

• 2022 – Inflation, rate hikes, and war.

• 2025 - And the tariff tantrum.

Each felt catastrophic in the moment. Collectively, they resulted in cumulative declines totaling 230%. Yet, if you invested $100,000 in March 2000 and stayed the course, you’d have about $750,000 today—an 8% annualized return despite everything. That’s below the long-term average, meaning we’re still playing catch-up. HINT: We are still likely in the midst of the third secular (long-term) bull market that I have been talking and writing about for over a decade.

The principle holds: declines are temporary; premium equity returns are permanent.

The Whole Package or None of It

You can’t cherry-pick the good parts. Successful equity investing means always accepting the whole package:

• A 33% temporary decline roughly every five years.

• A 15% temporary decline almost every year.

There is a price to pay for experiencing returns that historically beat bonds by 2½ times after inflation. This price isn’t measured in dollars, but in volatility and uncertainty – it’s a purely emotional cost. Many investors struggle to pay this price on their own, which is why Fusion exists: as tough-loving, empathetic behavioral investment counselors, we’re always by your side to supplement the currency need, always!

The Lesson

Crises come and go. Fear is fleeting. Historically, the premium return of equities endures. Whether you look at six years or twenty-five, the message is the same:

• Stay the course.

• Ignore the noise.

• Own the whole package.

Because history has always rewarded those who do