A hopeful thought
I’ve written before about how my retirement account looks terrible. As you can see from the picture in that post, when I began investing in the fund in 2006, it was around the mid-$20s, then it crept up to the low-$30s by October 2007. Then of course, it fell. Dramatically. It’s currently going for about $16. I’ve lost about 32% over the past year. Yuck.
So I thought,”What if the fund rose back up to its high point from October 2007?” In other words, what if the fund were back up to $31.67? Rather than being worth $3,920 (its value now), it would be $7,627. Considering I’ve only put $5,756 into it, that doesn’t sound too bad! In fact, that’s nearly a 33% increase in wealth.
Though I don’t expect this fund to rebound within the coming days, weeks, or even months, I fully expect that in the coming years it will return to its pre-2008 level, and even surpass it. I base that expectation on the fact that, in the long-run, the economy always gets better.
And that is quite a hopeful thought.