Volatility in /r/worldnews when a Redditor claims a stock price decrease doesn't mean a loss of wealth. The responses he gets aren't very NYSE.

Stocks are up (even including yesterday) well over 150% from their 2009 lows. 150% growth over 7 years, that's a fantastic return. It's just very basic investing that any sort of return that much better than inflation inherently involves risk, there's now way you could get a 15% annual return without the level of risk where 3-5% loss days almost certainly occur at some point. I mean it would be great if they didn't but you simply can't have that kind of growth without that kind of risk.

People could invest such that they'd never have a day where they "lose" millions but they'd actually be screwing themselves over... they'd be getting a 1% return, not even keeping pace with inflation. The beauty of investing a fortune in stocks/bonds/property long-term is that it grows 7-10% per year while paying you income. That's what the Reddit commentor saving for retirement doesn't understand... someone with $100 million invested is playing a different game. They will get the same $3-4 million (at least) just off dividend and other investment income in 2016, even if the markets don't recover from Brexit. They have no need to sell anything to get that income. They can (and should) just wait until the markets recover, even if it's 2017 or 2018 before they're up 20-30% over today and can sell for a comfortable profit, if they want to. They have that luxury because their income is coming anyway.

There are some minor problems related to a decline in paper net worth, but my point is that wealthy long-term investors know days like yesterday are inevitable, and it doesn't really hurt them anything like it hurts the small-time investor.

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