Happy Halloween!

The stock market can be just as scary as ghosts and goblins at times. Some years, in fact, the steep declines were downright frightening!

Take, for instance, 2008 when the S&P 500 lost 37%! More recently, in 2022, the S&P 500 lost 18%.

That's scary stuff, no doubt about it.

But the market saw a tremendous rebound in the years immediately following those two losing years.

How much of a rebound?

Well, in 2009, the S&P 500 closed out the year up 26% - that's a 63% rebound from the previous year's loss of 37%. And in 2023, the S&P 500 was up 25% for the year, a 43% recovery from the previous year's 18% loss.

Yes, investing has its scary moments. And sometimes those moments last months or years.

But historically, since the stock market crash of 1929 through 2024, the S&P 500 has enjoyed an average annual return of 11.7%.

When you're planning for retirement, there's nothing scary about that.