[powowow]

A good way to have a great annual return in year y+1 is to have a 21% decline during December of year y.

[vanniv]

2016: +11.96%

2017: +21.83%

2018: -04.38%

2019: +32%

(All numbers are total return, the 2019 source didn't have fractions of a %)

That's not a bad four years' return.

(Yes, December 2018 had a big decline -- but the first 11 months of the year were pretty good, and we ended only 4.38% off even with the 21% decline in the last month)

[perl4ever]

What is the significance of four years? Personally, I prefer to talk about my three year return.

[vanniv]

I wasn't trying to make a special significance by looking back exactly four years -- I picked 2016 as a starting point because I felt that it gave enough context to show that the big drop in December 2018 was a little blip in what is actually a huge uptrend.

[perl4ever]

If that was a little blip, then the uptrend clearly started in 2009.

[3fe9a03ccd14ca5]

An election cycle.

[perl4ever]

There were elections at the end of 2015 and 2019? Now you tell me!

[vanniv]

Oh, damn, I forgot to vote in them!

No wonder the world has gone to hell!