Compound Growth

March Market Recap: Volatility, War Headlines, and What Actually Moves Your Portfolio

• Compound Growth • Season 2 • Episode 13

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0:00 | 37:35

March was a rough month for markets — and it came with a lot of noise. Tariffs, geopolitical tension, and a sharp sell-off in tech had a lot of investors watching their portfolios and wondering what to do.

In this episode, Wheeler and Colin walk through exactly what happened in March 2026: where markets landed, which sectors got hit hardest, and why the headlines you were reading probably weren't the real story. They dig into the relationship between AI infrastructure spending and the tech correction, what historical parallels actually tell us about moments like this, and why permanent loss of capital looks nothing like a market drawdown.

They also make the case for something that's harder than it sounds: not logging in.

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Credits:
Created By: Wheeler Crowley and Colin Walker
Production, Editing and Post-Production: Tori Rothwell

I have to tell you, we're driving to Portland today.Did you know it's April Fool's Day?I do now.I forgot it was April 1st today.My family never forgets.I should know 'cause t- I pay my mortgage payment today.I got in my car today, and, um, you know, Mikayla and Jess had, like, mischie- mischievous smiles like they're up to something.I'm like, "What are they up to?"I'm looking around the garage.I'm like, "What did they do?"And I get into the car, and it's -- they, they sprayed my daughter's perfume in the car, so when we drive to go get lunch today, it's gonna smell like we're inside an Ulta store.It's very, very strong.Why is that so bad?Hey, I should probably- It's a good perfume.No.Well, I mean, I wanna be careful around- Okay.I save it.I don't love that she's wearing perfume.I see.And also it is kind of, I guess, preteen girl perfume, so it depends on whether you think fondly ofLike, I, I still think fondly of, like, Herbal Essence.Do you know what Herbal Essence was?I do.Yeah.I remember my first girlfriend, we used to have to go to, like, those stores to pick out perfume.And it, like, is ingrained in your mind.Yeah, yeah, yeah.Like, that specific- What that smell- Scent.Yeah.I mean, Herbal Essence- I'm excited to get taken back-it was a shampoowhen I get in your car later today.Tell me if this is what your f- your, like, 6th grade girlfriend's- Yeah, exactlyuh, perfume- That sounds goodAnyways, I was in the car with her the other day, and we were talking, of course, about AI.Mm-hmm.And- 'Cause what else do we talk about?What else are we gonna talk about?And, you know, we were talking about whether AI would, you know, replace us or, like, destroy us Terminator 2 style.You're talking to Mikayla?Talking to my daughter about this.This is not- Okaywhat you'd expect for- A sixth graderfather-daughter conversation.Yeah, exactly.Well, here's why I'm talking to her about it, because she provides perspective, and I thought her perspective was pretty interesting.She said, "I feel like what's going to happen is the robots will replace us, and they'll do all the work for us."Okay."And then they'll be like, 'Why are we doing all this work?We should just have the humans do all the work,' and we'll just relax."So it's The Matrix.It's not The Matrix 'cause it's, it's like a stepIt's like slavery basically.It'sBecause Matrix, we're all batteries.That's true.Right?Yeah.So I guess the only difference would be is as opposed to enslaving us to become batteries, you enslave us to be people.Yeah.But I- And we still get to be people.We're probably actually worse off than The Matrix, because in The Matrix, you think everything's- YeahI would much rather be in The Matrix.Yeah.But I, I don't know.I guess do machines and robots get tired of doing work?I don't know if they'd get tired of doing the work.I think they're just kinda like- Because, I mean, the reasonLike, we have to sleep, so that's the reason why we get tired of things and lazy.Like, I don't know if robots would get lazy unless we, like, programmed them to be- If they just don't wanna do the work.Like, there's certain jobs that you wannaLike, I don't wanna go back and be a waiter anymore.Like, I've done that.And I was imagining that yesterday, and I was like, "I-- Could I do that again?"Like, I don't know if I would do that again, right?Like, it'sSo it's not because I need sleep every night.It's because I just don't wanna do it.I love waiters.I always tip my servers- Sameexcessively.But I don't wanna do that job again.I, I wa- I appreciate how crappy that job is sometimes.Yes.So I tip for it.Anyways, I thought it was a good perspective.That is a good perspective.I hope we don't get enslaved by machines.That wouldn't be ideal.I, uh- Is it better than getting destroyed by the machines?No, I'd ratherWell, d- like, becoming a battery and living in The Matrix?Battery aside.If it's- Are we still in The Matrix?Okay.We're not in The Matrix.Okay.We're just either dead or slaves.Uh, it depends on the extent of the slavery.Yeah, like what if you're a slave day inWhat if this is basically just a 9to5 job?Well, in, in the Roman Empire, slaves got paid.You know, the Roman Empire- Have you seen Gladiators?slaves, slaves got paid.And- Let, let's not, like, let's not celebrate slavery.No, I'm not.Just saying.But I'm just saying, like, slavery in the Roman Empire, they got paid, they got treated well and stuff like that, you know?So it depends on the extent.It's like if you're likeI don'tI'm gonna go down another rabbit hole.Oh, no.But you brought it up.All right.So- I, I didn't bring up slavery in the Roman Empire.No, no, you brought up slaves.You brought up slaves.So I've been listening to this thing at night, and it's called Bedtime History.That'sIs itDoes it help put you to sleep?It actually does, yeah.I pass out in, like, within 20 minutes.But it was a history lesson on what it was like to be a pirate in the 1700.Okay.And it was talking about how a lot of merchant sailors were basically slaves.You went on a merchant ship and became a sailor, so you could basically afford the lowest amount of ends meet possible, and you would get scurvy because there's flat water that's all, like, moldy and gross.Just likeYep, yep.You were given, like, one little piece- Yepof bread for the entire day that was usually- Suredisgusting and had- MalnutritionYep.And then you were whipped all day.And then at the end of your voyage, once you got to the port, the captain could withhold payment if he wanted to.You weren't guaranteed payment.Wow.He could say, "You didn't hustle up enough.You didn't sharpen whatever, like, as good as you should've, and because of that, I'm cutting your pay in half."So a lot of the times people would just get paid enough to afford, like, one decent meal.So when they were boarded by pirates, a lot of merchant sailors, like, welcomed the idea of becoming pirates because it was a true democracy on the pirate ships, and it wasn't a slave-based thing.Most of the time people were there by free will.And I guess when it comes to your slavery question, it depends on the extent of the slavery, but then that would bring back piracy in my mind.Well, it would be Star Wars.St- Okay.StarNow it's Star Wars.Yeah.first it was Pirates of the Caribbean, and now it's, now it's, now it's- YeahStar Wars.I think I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that there weren't a lot of man on the street interviews of the slaves in the Roman Empire.Like, you know- No, there's a lot of accounts.I'm just saying there's a l- there's also a lot of, you know, histories written by the victors.Yeah.I mean, look, I don't think being a slave in the Roman Empire is an aspirational job.Or, like, way of living.But they treated them well.Yeah.Better than other cultures.Okay.Yes.I'm gonna transition.Please.Because we're talking about history today.We're goingYes.We're talking first about most recent history with our market recap, right?Mm-hmm.But we're also gonna be talking about this moment in history that we're in-and how it is similar to previous moments or dissimilar from previous moments- Yepand what to expect.Welcome to The Compound Growth Podcast with Colin and Wheeler, where we talk all things growth.From financial growth to career growth, personal development to societal progress, we explore how each layer builds on the next, compounding over time to shape who we become.Each week, we break down complex ideas and emerging trends into clear, actionable insights, because growth isn't just about numbers, it's about understanding the world and our place in it.So I got charts for you.I got handouts- Okaytoday.I'm excited.And I'm gonna ask you to go through these in order.Okay.But don't go-- don't skip ahead.right.Our first chart is a snapshot of the markets in March 20 26.We're looking at the US stock markets, S&P, Nasdaq.We're also looking at international, Europe, developed- Emerging marketsemerging markets, et cetera.March sucked, like we saw it every day.Do you know there wasn't and there hasn't been a single 2 percent down day this year?It's been just kind of like- We had a two percent up day.We did.But we haven't had 2 percent down days.It's just been kind of like death by a thousand cuts.Yeah.It's been a slow bleed.But what's good about that is it's not like the market overreacting necessarily.Yeah.I mean, I don't know.I, I'm sure you, you obviously remember this.When we were in COVID, and we would just hit the breakers.Yeah.Right.Like every 4 days, like, yeah, just done.Market closed, market closed.Take a breath.Yeah.But it was, it was like a very orderly decline, right?Through March, you could see that the S&P and the Nasdaq were d- both down around 5 percent.Yep.You know, emerging markets had a thirteen percent decline just in that one month.Uh, developed Europe, et cetera, was down ten percent in just that one month.So it was a pretty crappy month for our diversified portfolios.Yeah, it was.It was.ButAnd I don't, I don't wanna fast-forward through your charts.Yeah.Diversification did reallyIt did, if you had the right kind of diversification.Correct.Yes, it did.Right?All right, so second chart here, as we flip to year-to-date through the first quarter of 20 26, same indices, so S&P, Nasdaq-Europe, et cetera.And you can see that actually, emerging markets have been a good diversifier this year.They're only down a fraction of a percent this year.You wanna know what I find kinda funny is, I don't know if you get this, but a lot of clients will hop on the phone and say, "The market's crashing."Yeah, of course.You know, "What's going on with my portfolio?"Yeah, yeah."Things are terrible," whatnot.Yep.And I mean, they're not wrong.March was a rough month.Yep.But if you look at it year-to-date- To dateit's really not that bad.I mean, if you, if you have the average of these 4 indices, you're down, what, 3?Three and a half.Something like that?Yeah.Nobody likes being down, but it's not exactly like, you know, calling the national, um- It's not the 30 percent decline in COVID or something like thatcalling the National Guard for random things now.Anyways, so yeah, down 7 percent, maybe on, is the worst, is the Nasdaq is the worst of all these.Going to the next chart, this is why it feels a little bit worse, right?This is off the highs, right?So looking at March, adding it all in, we went up to start 20, uh, 20 26, right?So it's really that we made some progress and then we, we treated from that progress.Yeah.I think bas- I think we hit 4 percent was basically the peak in- Mm-hmmsome of the indices, and then from there it just wentexactly.So that's why when you talk to a client right now, and, you know, they're like, "Oh my God, what's gonna happen?"You know, "The market's crashing," et cetera, and then I, like, log into their portfolio, I'm like, "You're up 12 percent over the last year."Like- How are we- It's because of the progress that we made and that we're giving that back.I think that's a tough experience.I think it's tough to go from a high watermark- Yeahand then see that number.Let's just say you were at two point eight million dollars of investable assets, then you finally hit 3000000, then once you get to 3000000, it drops back down significantly.Yeah, and they're like 2.7.Yeah.You're gonna be like, "I wanna get back there."Yeah, yeah.I was there, and then you- That's where I should beyeah, you anchor to that number.Correct.Yeah.All right, so I wanna draw your line or your, your eye to that top line.Okay.The line, it's negative 6 percent on the S&P 500.Yes.Okay?That's through the, the first quarter of 20 26.Okay.Final page.There's that negative 6 percent.And there are the top, uh, 7 stocks in the S&P 500.I pulled this up for a client yesterday.It's funny that I'm seeing this chart.I thought concentration was going to destroy the stock market.Not at all.Here we have the worst of it, Microsoft down 23%.It was down 30% at 1 point this year.Yeah, it's actually come back.Yeah, but down 23%.Meta down 23%, right?We got Google down 16%, Amazon down 16%.The best one of these is Apple down 9%, and that's underperforming the stock market.These are the 7 largest companies in the S&P 500.Getting smoked.They're not the Mag 7.No, they're not.But they'reYeah, they're all getting smoked.Yeah.And yet the market's holding up.Diversification.Diversification.Well, we should talk about ExxonMobil too- Rightand everything like that, you know?And utilities in general.Like, if you look at the, uh, I think it's MSCI utilities, yesterday I think it was, uh, 6.5% year to date.Yeah.You know, utilities has been amazing year to date.You know, if you have some fixed income, that's also done fairly decently- Sureif it's short term.Yeah.You have energy, has absolutely ripped with the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, which we'll talk about later.Yeah.But there are a lot of sectors that have performed really, really well, and our value-based funds that we have, our index funds, they have also just in general been awesome.And I think it'sWhat's, what's tough is that, like, th- there's a narrative out there, and you have to question them because- You doa lot of people point to something and say, "See?This is what's gonnaThis is bad for the stock market."It is.And then those stocks get crushed, and the stock market does fine because if it's a healthy stock market, there's under- there's underlying rotation.You have Exxon that you brought up.Yeah.That's a top 10 stock in the S&P 500 now.Yeah.And it wasn't just a year ago.Yeah, if you rewind the clock back a year ago, it was a completely different chart.Yeah.And no one really wantedI mean, everybody wanted to hold the Mag Seven and those companies that we just named that were down 20%.Those were the ones that everybody wanted in their portfolio.Now it's flipped.Everybody wants the ExxonMobils.Everybody wants, you know, the BPs and all those because they're ripping this year.Yeah.Well, I guess if there are some overreactions in the market, it could be in those cases.It could be the SaaSpocalypse, where just, like, the ServiceNows and the Workdays and the Salesforces and the Microsofts are all getting slaughtered because of AI.Right?But there's also the overreaction to the other side perhaps.Like, maybe we're starting to overWell, I, I personally think we might be overpaying for something like Costco or Walmart- Yesbecause, like, they're brick and mortar, and they aren't going to get destroyed by AI.So now we're overpaying for companies that don't necessarily have the growth profiles that we're paying for.Yeah.Did you see Oracle yesterday too?No.Announced, like, several thousand jobs are gonna get laid off.Yeah, right.Yeah.I, I mean, that's, like, super common these days, you see.Like, there's a lot of jobs right now that are probably under the gun.Yeah.But you know what's interesting, because that'sWho was it?The guy that, uh, I'm spacing on his name right now.Jack whatever, Dorsey?That's it.Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.And he took over, he, uh, took over the company formerly known as Square, and, uh, the first thing he did was, like, lay off everybody.Mm-hmm.And I saw a great- Well, that was famous Elon Musk with Twitter too.Right.Yeah, yeah.Yeah.But I saw a great GIF going around, and it's like Jack Dorsey at the company quarterly meeting, and it's just him and a bunch of computers, empty computers at the conference table.It's just him and his AI bots.Yeah.Um, anyways, those are his shareholders too.But you, like, you're certainly as a company being rewarded for shrinking headcount right now.You are.It looks like an efficiency.But I heard the, uh, CEO of Paylocity- Mm-hmmspeak last month, and they, they don't necessarily work with Meta, but they work with a lot of small, mid-size US companies, and what he's seeing is stability.There's just, like, there's no shrinkage in headcount.It just looks very, very stable so far.Maybe that's not always going to be the case, but maybe right now the layoffs are really clustered in the largest companies because they're the ones that got the most bloated, and they have the most room to cut.100%.I mean, if you go back the last few years, the amount of hiring that those companies did was outrageous because they were trying to scale their AI and their infrastructure so much- Yeahwith the build-out of these things that, yeah, at this point, you probably overhired.And that's not to say that you're taking your company and you're shrinking it down and trying to do, you know, have one person do 20 different jobs, but you probably were overstaffed from the very start.Yeah.And now you're having to correct for that, especially in, you know, probably a bit of a lull in the market here for the foreseeable future.We'll see what happens.Yeah.Hopefully, I mean, look, thisThat's the, is nobody knows how long- No one knowsthis is gonna go for.Yeah.Um, why don't we get into the Strait of Hormuz?'Cause that- that's your topic for the day, and I wanted- Yeahto dive into that with you.Yeah.And I know you're gonna talk about some history of war as well, but I guess something that I wanted to talk about today is war in general, because war can be seen as a business.Mm-hmm.And it is a huge business.I was just thinking about this because obviously a lot of money is made in war, and a lot of companies are focused on war.And I had a conversation with multiple clients actually that wanted to buy defense stocks.And I don't know if you've had this conversation lately, but people are confused about why defense companies are down year to date.Mm.You know, I had, um, a client who owns a defense index fund, and it's focused on, you know, the Raytheons of the world, the Northrop Gummins, BAEs, like all of those- Yeahdifferent types of companies.And he doesn't understand why it's down so far year to date.And I think what a lot of people fail to realize is a lot of the revenue, and pretty much all of the revenue of these companies, is made through government contracts.It's not like they have a bunch of missiles on a shelf, and the government walks in and is like, "I'll take 10."Everybody goes on a shopping spree.Exactly.Yeah.Loading up their grocery cart.So when war breaks out, that's not something that's necessarily going to drive revenue.Right.But that's something that's going to already have been priced in through government contracts.Yeah, to date, right?To date.It's, it doesn't have an immediate impact.Yeah, exactly.So I wanted to just grab some stats and just think through how big of an industry war is in general.One big stat that I thought was very interesting is we have spent $8 trillion on war efforts since 9/11.Wow.Which makes it basically one of the largest industries- What comps that?in the US.Like, do you know- So exports in regards to weapons, creation of weapons, government contracts- Yeahyou have aerospace, defense, like, all of those things combined, not to mention building new facilities, building new bases, like, personnel.All of that stuff has been $8 trillion dedicated towards the funding of war efforts.Now, is thatSorry, is that $8 trillion in government contracts, or is that- It's everything.Yeah, so it's $8 trillion in just earnings by these businesses.Correct.Okay.Yeah, yeah, yeah.And future obligations that, for contracts that have already been signed and agreed upon, will push that over $10 1000000000000.So it's extremely significant, but it's basically not a line item.It's an economic force- Sureif you will.Yeah.Because that's not a one-off thing.War has been, I'll say, economic driver since the Roman times, going back in history.Here we are with the Romans again.I'm going back to the Romans.But if you go all the way back through history, and I think people look at war and think the market's going to crash, almost every single war we've had going back to 1942, at the conclusion of that war, the market has been a year higher.Yeah.What, what would be- Or has been a higher a year later.What's the exception?Well, the exception is, is what's going on during war.So I think this is the, the issue, is people think just because there's a war, that's going to cause the market to go down, but it's not necessarily the war that makes the market go down.Mm-hmm.It's the, the effects of the war.So perfect example, Strait of Hormuz.You know, it's a, it's a 21-mile wide strait at its narrowest point that when you close that down, 20% of all energy supply is essentially halted, which is going to cause oil prices to go up, which if you think about the consumer, is going to affect travel prices, is going to affect your gas, is going to affect so many things in regards to normal, basic materials that you purchase because a lot of those materials are imported.And if travel and importation costs increase, then the end consumer product, the price of that is also increased.Yeah.So it drives inflation.And that is probably where a lot of this is maybe lost on people, is it's not so much that the war is going to cause the market to go down.It's that war can drive inflation higher and make things more expensive in addition to energy consumption and things like that.So there's certain areas that are negatively impacted, but there are companies that do benefit, like defense contractors and stuff like that.Mm-hmm.So that's kind of the basis of what I was researching that was a good refresher for me when I was going through my economics courses.Yeah, that makes sense.And, you know, it'sI'd be curious to see, because a lot of the, like, SRI type investors have been doing fairly well for a long time because a lot of companies have worked their way to qualify as an SRI- Yepsocially responsible investment, to the point where you can have something like Meta go- Right.as a socially responsible investment, when their number one product is, like, banned for teenagers in 14 countries 'cause it's so dangerous.Totally.And obviously, you know, outside of, of guns and tobacco-energy's always been the big culprit that people don't want to have in their portfolio.Yeah.And I haven't looked, but I would be interested to see what, like, the SRI version of the S&P 500 index fund is doing this year.Because if you don't have, like, energy in that portfolio, or maybe some of these energies, companies have gotten to the point where they're, like, buying carbon coupons or whatever- Right.so that they, you know, now they're SRI.But if, if you don't have exposure to energy in a year like this, you're definitely going to underperform, and you're going to feel that pain a little bit more.Yeah.Well, totally.I mean, if you go back to the 1970s and think through, like, stagflation and what happened during those times where interest rates- Mm-hmmyou know, were, like, 17 and a quarter for a mortgage, a lot of that was caused by energy prices, and that caused a lot of the issues, was that spike.Yeah.So I think a lot of people are fearful of that happening again right now.I mean, I filled up my car yesterday, and it was $4.05 a gallon.Yeah.Well, the boomers still feel that.Like They do.They remember- That's ingrained in them.Yeah, they re- they remember stagflation.Yeah.I mean, I was- And they have a lot of wealthI was just talking with my dad about this and how he remembers going to refinance his house every 8 months because he started at 17 and a quarter.Yeah, yeah.You know, 8 months later it was 15, then it was 14.Then it dropped to 12, and then it kept going down and down and down.Yep.So the fear was is that if you didn't grab it, it's gonna shoot back up.Yeah, right, 'cause that was the, the m- the recency bias, right?Yeah, totally.Really, really a play there.And then you have, obviously, people who remember sitting in those lines where, like, based on your license plate number, like, it was an odds or evens day, and you got to get gas that day.Yeah.You know?Totally.So, like, it'sWhen those are, like, engraved in your memWe have one client, and no matter how hard I try in his financial plan, I cannot make him run out of money, and he cannot acceptMm-hmm.Right?He's, like, always fearful, and it's because of his life experiences.It's, it's what his parents taught him.It's what he lived.It's like there's something that's going to happen- Yeahand I need to make sure I'm prepared for it.Yeah, there's literally nothing that you could do.He could have a billion dollars and spend 20K a year.Still wouldn't matter.Um, yeah.That's fair enough.But, but yeah, so just going through that, I think the refresher for me as I was doing this exercise was a reminder that markets are very resilient to war, but who is impacted is the actual consumer.Through things like inflation, through things like energy prices and whatever it might be, interest rates going higher, all of those things affect the consumer.Mm-hmm.But markets in general are actually very resilient to war, and most of the time it is priced in.And that's probably why we haven't seen so much of a decline in the market, and that's why diversified portfolios, if we look at things like value and energy stocks, are actually only down 3 to 4%.Yeah.So that's, that was the big refresher for me in thinking through the Strait of Hormuz and the economic impact that it has.Yeah.I mean, that, that makes a lot of sense.There's a great scene in Landman, the first season, where he's talking about solar power and oil and all the oil that goes into solar power.Like, all, or, like, actually he was talking about windmills, I think, or theRight, windmills.Yeah, turbines.Turbines.And, like, how much oil was used to build the turbine, or how much oil is used to pour cement, and how much oil is used to make water bottles, and how much oil is blah, blah, blah.It impacts all these different areas that you don't think about.Yeah.And so it has a, to your point, a big impact on the consumer, and the market is forward-looking.So the market is thinking out into the future and saying, "What will the impact on the consumer be?I'm going to discount the value of the stock market based on that."And then by the time we get there, so let, you know, let's say the market's thinking about this fall.You know, by the time we get there, the market's already priced it in.You know?And then we get theSo the market always recovers before the economy recovers.Totally.So if you're ever worried about the economy recovering, the market's- Look at the market.Right.Yeah.Um, I heard a, a fun fact, and, you know, sometimes you hear these facts and you're like, "Where does this comeWhat are they looking at?"Tom Lee was on CNBC the other day, Tom Lee, the Fundstrat research guy.Yeah.And, um, he was talking about how the market bottoms in the first 10% of every war.And I'm like, "What?"So if you think about, like- What does that even mean?It means that if, let's say that this is a 2year war- Okaythen the market would bottom in the first 3 months.So if we think about the war in Ukraine, the market bottomed.It took, like, 3 or 4 months.What were we down, 24%?We hit the mark, the market bottomed in October of that year, and it peaked in January, so it was a 10-month process.Yeah, it was roughly 10 months.Yeah.So then that would mean- That would be a, let's call it a 6year war.Right.I follow.Yep.So, like, there's often damage that is done, and it can be significant damage, and the, the worst of it is, like, World War II was when, like, you saw the market really struggle for a long period of time.Mm-hmm.I have a whole bunch of examples of more recent, like, wars or 9/11 or, you know, Operation Desert Storm or whatever.I'm excited.I, we're up against the clock, so I'm actually not gonna go through all this anymore.But- You'll have to hand it to me, 'cause as you know, I'm a history buff.You can read it up.Read up on it.It's really good.Yeah.I thought, I thought I did good research on this, but the overall takeaway is kind of what you said.First and foremost, we have to remember that volatility is the price of entry.That's what Morgan Housel said.It's a great quote, and it basically means that if you're going to invest in the stock market-And you're going to take this ride and benefit from it, you have to be able to handle the near term volatility.Absolutely.Right?It is not a, the disease, it's the symptom.It's, it's meant to be, it's a part of the market.Volatility- It's not a flawisn't unusual.It should be expected.Right.Yeah.Yeah.It's not a flaw, it's a symptom, is what I meant to say.So when you look at just, like, all these different scenarios, you brought up Ukraine, that's a perfect example.So when the Ukraine war started, everybody was talking about commodities, and like- YepUkraine is the bed bask- bread basket of Europe, et cetera.And, and you saw like futures, agriculture futures like skyrocket, right?And everybody trying to price, price in the impact on things.A bunch of money spent on defense contracts and- Yepyou know, we're sending missiles and Elon Musk is sending, you know, Starlink- Just-whatever.And the market goes through the process of pricing all that and then bottoms out and moves on.Mm-hmm.And I think you have to also understand the other elements that are at play there, because the Ukraine war might have been, I don't know, one data an- point that drove the market south.Interest rates rising were way more impactful and way more significant.So if you have the situation that we're at right now, where the Strait of Hormuz is closed down again, again I say, because this is the second time- The second and the first timein the last 5 years.Because we had COVID.Yes.Right?And nothing was shipping and blah, blah, blah.So we've dealt with these disruptions in shipping and logistics already in the, in this decade, and we've gotten through it, right?So what we're dealing with is just near term volatility.I think that what people get lost on or with is they just, they want to point a finger, and they say, "This is happening because the war," or, "It's happening because of uncertainty with AI," or, "We have a new Fed chief coming in."Or, and maybe this is related to the war, we have, you know, a president who willHe doesn't tweet, he does whatever, Truth Social.Truth Social, yeah.Right?Who will say one thing, the next day he says another thing, and he just sends us all over the place.We haven't had, to your, as we said, we haven't had a two perc- 2% decline, but we've had a big up day, you know?And the, the last day of March was up, like, the, the NASDAQ was up, like, 3.5%, something like that.Yeah, it was massive.And that was because of speculation and unconfirmed rumors based on whatever.What he said.You know, I think we live in this world right now where there's volatility in the stock market, there's a lot of political volatility, and so people connect those dots.And I look at this and I say the stock market has a good way of, of filtering out all the noise.You can say that if we look at Liberation Day and the lows there, Trump tweets or his Truth Socials, what do you call that?I don't even know.I don't know.Truths.Yeah.That seems stupid.Tweets.He says something- Yeahand he says, like, yeah, Trump tweets, "Buy stocks," and then the stock market goes up 6% that day.Right.And you can say, well, he's gonna influence the stock market to some degree, but then it normalizes.It does.And it only went up 6% 'cause he sent it down 20.And the stock market, to be honest, hasn't had, since the tariffs, I really can't think of a time up until maybe the last few days, where the market has actually reacted off of something he said.No, it does a lot.It's just in little, it, you, what you'll see is intraday reactions.It's like very slight.Like, it goes up and then it comes back down or whatever, but there's all these different headlines, and it's just that we live in a world right now where the president creates a lot of headlines.And if you just go backwards, Biden was, like, sleeping the whole term.So I don't know what the hell he was doing.I mean, you never heard anything.Yeah.Um, and Obama didn't create headlines.No.So, like, if you look at just, like, we are, we live in a, a world that you can look at Obama and say, hey, he used, you know, grassroots and, you know, social media to get elected.Sure.Right?Trump uses social media to just spew- Blastwhatever the hell is on his mind every day.Yeah.That's a new part of the market that we have to navigate, but it doesn't control the market.It influences, but doesn't control.And we have to remember that the market is smarter than any one person.It's certainly smarter than you, me, or- Yeahthe President of the United States.And it's just sussing out what it sees coming, and you have to just be along for that ride because, you know, 75% of the time market goes up.Um, on that front, I was having a conversation, and this was a, I don't know, maybe it was last week, but regardless, client was very concerned about the war, and they're like, "My portfolio is getting blown up."Yep.You know, "The war is tanking everything."And I'm like, "Well, the war is not tanking everything.You're super heavy in tech, and the fact that you own a huge chunk of Nvidia, Facebook, Microsoft, all these companies that have gotten smoked 20 percent"Well, theActually, this was last week, so it was way more than that at the time."That's the reason why your portfolio is down.It's not necessarily the war.The war hasn't helped."No."It hasn't been a net positive for you, but the fact of the matter is, is that a lot of these companies have spent a ton of money hiring people and building out AI infrastructure, which is now becoming reflective on their balance sheet."So to your point, while the war is a very polarizing topic at the moment, that's not what's driving everything that's going on right now.There are other things that are happening- Yeahin regards to company earnings, have AI being a huge thing.Companies were up huge last year, and is that sustainable every year?No.Of course not.It's not.It doesn't make sense.You're not gonna get a twenty percent year every year.So I agree with you.It is a good refresher to run through the fact that while a headline is polarizing and it's what's everybody's focusing on, the market doesn't care about that stuff a lot of the times.The market's also looking at ten other things beneath it, and it's a collaboration or a, um, I'll say, like a, a melting pot of all of these different things that will impact the portfolio- Yeahas a whole.I, I kind of think of it like if you're ever driving down the highway and it's a really windy day, you ever felt like the car get just like- Totallypushed a little bit by the wind?Mm-hmm.That's what happens with the market, right?Like, it hits traffic jams.It's a good analogy.Right?It, it has wind pushed in and whatever, but ultimately you get where you're going, and I realize that somebody could throw a car crash example into that, but let's just- A bridge collapse.That's what we like to call a black swan.Yes.Well, also, I mean, you, you should really look at just, like, traffic as the market, not just one car, because it's all these different cars, right?Of course.But you also have to point out that there's never been permanent loss of capital as the result of a war.Mm-hmm.There's been as a result of fraud.Mm-hmm.It's been on single stock, you know, uh- Concentrationright?Like, it's i- if you're diversified in the S&P 500, you've never lost all of your money.Right.And I think that what we have to remind people is that they have a right to be scared.They should be scared if they'reLike, things-- If you worry about things going down in value, you're going to be scared and, like, you have a right to feel that way.But you have to just kind of compartmentalize to a degree and say, "Is this the money I need right now?Is the worst thing that's going to happen that I see these paper numbers go down?"Right?"Or is it that I can't afford this big purchase that I wanna make, or I can't pay my bills in retirement?"Because I think what people are really averse to is permanent loss of capital, and they see these, these headline numbers and they say, "Oh my God, I'm gonna lose everything," or, "I don't wanna go down at all," or, "I wanna, like, go to cash and then buy in at some point because I know exactly what's gonna happen the next day."Yeah.And then just that, you know, how many days in the market you miss determines your return, et cetera.Yeah, all those stats.We won't get into it.No.I think it's just really important to be cognizant of what the real risk is, and the real risk is not being able to keep up with inflation, not being able to pay your bills later, and anything that you need now shouldn't be taking on stock market risk.Yeah.I mean, people always say, "I don't wanna lose my money."Right.Or, "I don't want this account to go to 0."Or when we build out a portfolio, they're like, "I don't wanna be too aggressive because if I lose this, it's gonna be detrimental to me."Right.The thought of losing something, and to your point, permanent loss of capital, I don't wanna say is impossible, but let's think through what that actually looks like.Yeah.To have a stock portfolio, diversified stock portfolio, or the S&P five hundred go to 0 means when you wake up, who makes your bed sheets is no longer around.Right.The person where you shop to go get your hardwood floor when you got out of bed is no longer here.You know, your water doesn't turn on when you turn the faucet.Mm-hmm.You don't order things on Amazon anymore.It's an apocalypse.You can't fly.You can't fill up your car because you won't have a car.You can't service it.Yeah.Companies have ceased to exist all at the exact same time.Yeah.Which means that you and I are also not here.I mean, we could be here, you know.But if all of those companies are gone- Yeahyou know, you're at martial law at that point.You know, money is worthless.So what does it matter what your portfolio says?What does it matter?And the odds of that happening, I don't wanna say are 0 because there's a chance anything could happen, aliens could come down or whatever.Yeah.But it's so unlikely to the point where it's not even worth a conversation.There are so many horrible things about war.The impact on your stock portfolio- Mm-hmmis temporary and not one of those horrible things, and there are lots of reasons for people to beLook, we're fed reasons all day to be upset about things.You can pick one of those reasons if you want.But if you're going to be concerned about the impact of war on your stock portfolio, just don't log in and look at it because it will go back to where it was and then higher if you don't pay attention to it.What I'll also say to add to that is most of the times, the disasters that drive your portfolio down more are not war.So, um, and I don't wanna be cavalier.We sound cavalier.We do.Let's not dismiss everybody.But let's make sure everybody knows that if they are panicking, we can talk them through it.We can assess the risk that they're taking or not taking.We can point to the safety in their portfolios.Definitely.We can walk through ways to make people feel better.If you disagree with anything that we said today, not you, Colin, but any listener- Both of usI feel they could email us to- Yes.We have a new email address, which is compoundgrowthpodcast@gmail.com.Is it really?I'm told we, we received an email.Nice.All right.So we've been asking people to say, like- Yeah, if you have anything that you'd contribute- Yeah, but now they can send it to the Compound Growth Podcast.You can also comment on the video.All right.Like and subscribe.But if that helps.Yeah.Thanks, everybody.Thanks.All right, bye.Bye.The information in this material is for general information only and is not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.Investment advice offered through Integrated Partners doing business as CoFi Advisors LLC, a registered investment advisor.Integrated Partners does not provide legal, tax, mortgage advice or services.Please consult your legal tax advisor regarding your specific situation.Past performance is no guarantee f- of future results.All investing involves risk, including loss of principal.No strategy assures success or protects against loss.The economic forecast set forth in this material may not develop as predicted, and there can be no guarantee that the strategies promoted will be successful.Compound Growth with Wheeler and Colin.Sponsored by CoFi Advisors.Reach out today.Yay.