In September 1995, Peter Lynch wrote a timeless article titled, Fear of Crashing.

Here are a few quotes from the article:

Lynch makes a couple of points worth revisiting today.

First, corrections are an extremely common occurrence. They always have been and always will be.

We're experiencing one now, and while I don't own a ranch, I'd bet my tract home there will be another one in the future. 🤠

I've found that the only thing more common than market corrections are the predictions for market corrections.

The minute this one is behind us...

...the talking heads will be predicting the next one.

For that reason, we should mentally prepare ourselves for these inevitabilities.

Second, how should we prepare for corrections? Or what might we do once we're in the middle of a correction?

Keep in mind that Lynch is widely considered one of the greatest investors of all time.

His advice to "do nothing" wasn't what most would have expected from a successful active fund manager.

He didn't say we should evaluate the current economic or geopolitical climate or go to cash to wait for clearer skies.

On the contrary -- and in the plainest language possible -- he said to DO NOTHING.

As unhelpful as that sounds at first glance, it's easy to see the value of this "do nothing" advice. In fact, it's staring right at us in the first quote I shared above:

Lynch wrote that in 1995.

Today, the Dow is at ~33,500 and we're in the middle a bear market. 

That means, since the article's publication, if you owned the index and followed his advice by doing nothing...

...your investment would have multiplied 7 times.

All you had to do was sit there. And do nothing.

The benefit of hindsight makes this sound easy, but of course, it wasn't.

Since 1995, we've experienced:

• Two of the deepest declines in market history
• A flat decade
• A global pandemic
• 40-year record high inflation

And yet, despite each of these ends-of-the-world, including the one we're currently in, the market is still up 7x.

The overlooked key to this strategy is not being distracted by our friends who call us crazy for "doing nothing" while they panic sell at market lows.

We don't have to do that.

We can heed the wisdom and life experience of those who have come before us.

And we can lean on the entirety of history.

This is the supremely logical position to take, even if it is perpetually uncomfortable.

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Stay wealthy,

Taylor Schulte, CFP®