This Week’s Good Financial News
One of the most frightening viruses for new parents and their babies is RSV. As you may have heard, this season has been terrible (As a dad of 4 year old and a 1-year-old, I can confirm).
However, due to decades of research and scientific innovation, Pfizer recently announced that it has an effective RSV vaccine that it will submit to the FDA for approval by the end of the year. Moderna, and other pharmaceutical companies, have also been working on solutions.
Is this financial news? Not necessarily. But it offers a positive look at how innovation leads to business opportunities and impactful steps forward for the human experience.
An effective RSV vaccine could lead to fewer emergency room and ICU visits for young babies, lowering infant mortality, lessening trauma (for babies and families), and dramatically lowering overall medical expenses.
These are wins.
Onward.
An Investment Note for Retirees
Financial news feeds on the negative because negativity sells.
There. I said it.
Media is a business. There’s nothing wrong with that. They need clicks and subscribers to support their work. Yet in their neverending quest to focus investors on what is wrong RIGHT NOW, we forget what has always been right.
That is, the market has historically rewarded patient long-term stock investors.
Even though things feel bad now, there are always interesting developments under the surface of markets.
For example, from October 1st, 2022, through December 7th, 2022, the S&P 500 has increased by 9.71%, global stocks, as measured by the Morgan Stanley All Country World Index, have increased by 11.63%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has increased by nearly 17%1.
Of course, things look even better if we zoom out twenty years. This, mind you, is always the case.
It pays the media to keep you negative. Yet, staying positive and optimistic has historically rewarded long-term diversified stock investors.
I suggest the latter more than the former.
A Thought on Retire on Purpose
Can we measure retirement well-being?
According to Margin Seligman’s book Flourish, "Well-being has five measurable elements (PERMA) that count toward it.
Positive Emotion (of which happiness and life satisfaction are all aspects)
Engagement
Relationships
Meaning
Achievement
No element defines well-being, but each contributes to it."
This is what your retirement financials are meant to support - PERMA. This is how we flourish in anticipation of retirement and throughout our retirement years.
Note: You cannot invest directly in an index.