IncomeSharks

It's incredibly rare to get two consecutive down years which has only happened 3 times:
Hoover 4 consecutive down years
Bush 3 consecutive down years
Nixon 2 consecutive down years

The markets won't crash as much as the bears think, and the dips won't be as easy to buy as the bulls think. The truth often falls somewhere in the middle of the extremes.

Making 100% one year and losing 50% the next means in two years you spent all that time to break even.
Retail isn't bad at trading, they are terrible at stopping while up (we've all done it).
Solution? Years you beat the market, put that money into the S&P 500 to preserve it.

The markets don't bottom when the price of OIL tops, it's actually closer to the opposite. The best 3 time times to buy stocks the past 20 years were all at the lowest prices of OIL.

There's only been 3 presidents in 100 years where the stock market finished worse off than when they took office.
Hoover 1929 (Great Depression)
Nixon 1969 (Great Stagflation, Inflation, Nixon Shock)
Bush 2001 (Dot Com bubble, 9/11, 2008 global crash)
"It's never been worse"

Every financial app should automatically close 25% of your position every time a screenshot is taken.

It's fair to say you've never seen social media and sentiment "feel this bad" but it's not fair to say you haven't seen the markets worse. Last year we dropped 22% in a month. In 2022 to 2023 we dropped 27% and had 9 months of down only. And in 2020 we dropped 35% in a month.

By the time you become a geopolitical expert in one conflict it's time to move on to the next. This is why bulls retire and bears sound smart short term but end up underperforming long term.