Jon Quast

Yeah, there is a great section of author Morgan Housel's book, The Psychology of Money.

He talks about if an alien was to come down to Earth and look at the economy right before the Great Recession and then come down again during the Great Recession, what would that alien actually see that was different with the economy?

So many things were actually pretty much the same, but what had changed was our feelings about those things.

things.

And that does happen in business where you are not feeling great about what you're seeing.

And so then you start adjusting your business accordingly.

I think that that is very possible.

The thing about personal finance is it's personal.

For personal reasons, I don't have a ton of new money to be putting into the market right now on, say, a monthly basis.

I think that is the best approach to always be able to continue to put money into the market, whether the market is up or down.

I think that the data bears that out.

In my personal situation, my portfolio is

pretty high in cash right now, relatively speaking, about 17% cash.

I'm not saying that that is a strategy for every investor out there.

Again, it's personal.

But I think that there's a psychological benefit that can come from having some cash in a portfolio, especially when the market is going down.

When the market is going down, there are often

some really attractive, compelling bargains out there if you're taking that long-term mindset.

It's really exciting to be able to invest in high-quality businesses trading at a discount.

If you don't have cash in the portfolio and you don't have new money to be adding to the market, it's psychologically difficult to sell perhaps one stock that's down to buy something that's even better.