238 | Market Update for Patient Investors: Sept 30, 2025

A market update thru the first nine months of 2025 - if you glaze over when you hear the word “investing”, this update is designed for you.

Interest paid on cash so far this year is the blue dot.

Those are the dollars you see hitting your high-interest savings account each month - fun and novel but not an investment.

Since 2014, the best single year for the average all-stock (relatively more risky) or all-bond (relatively less risky) portfolio is the green line.

A good reminder that owners get the reward for taking the risk.

Since 2014, the worst single year for the average all-stock or all-bond portfolio is the red line.

Owners can be left holding the bag too.

If you want to be “aggressive” with your investments, the wide side of the cone is the place to be.

If you want to be “conservative”, you’d move towards the narrow, left side of the cone.

The gray dots below are for the average all-stock or all-bond portfolio this year.

Since January 1, $100,000 invested in stocks is almost $120,000 and $1,000,000 is close to $1,200,000.

The headlines don’t reflect this reality, but it’s a helpful remainder that you’re usually rewarded for staying invested during the uncertainty - not once everything has “settled down”.

We can’t forget that these dots are a crude summary of the returns for all of the public companies operating around the world.

We could continue drilling down to see each company’s contribution to the whole, but the number of dots would be overwhelming.

The orange x's go one layer deeper to show us the biggest pieces of a typical investment portfolio - the orange x’s on each side roll up to represent the gray dot on their side of the cone.

But a good investor doesn’t care about 9 months of returns - that doesn’t move the needle over a lifetime.

When we reflect on the last 10 years, you’d be crazy to complain.

If you’ve stayed invested for the past decade, despite the ups and downs, you made the equivalent of 12% every year for 10 straight years.

In the good times and bad times, patient investing knows that…

• Basic understanding enables ignorance.

• Someone will always beat you.

• Effort ≠ Results.

• Owners get the upside (and the other side too).

• Spreading your eggs reduces the pain.

• The short term can disappoint.

• Patience is the only shortcut.

• Investments are a distraction in our relationship with money.