Time in the Market

You may have heard this more than once: it's not about timing the market, it's about time in the market.

That's true on more than one level. Maybe my knowledge of who's what is lacking, but I don't remember an intra-day or short-term trader who built his wealth trading and became a multi-billionaire and stayed that way for a long term.

Long-term investors, yeah. But that means time in the market already, more than timing it.

I continue to see signs of capitulation, maybe even despair (although I don't think we are there yet) as this bear market progresses. People who lived off crypto are taking jobs because they can't sustain themselves during the bear market from crypto income, less activity on-chain, and support posts trying to keep people's spirits up.

And I admit, if we look at our portfolios, things don't look pretty compared to only half a year ago, not to mention the highs.

I won't talk here about the technological and especially software progress being made during bear markets, which is especially important for projects with serious owners/community and a good economy.

But I want to give myself as an example. Without being a top investor, but generally avoiding chasing every trend out there, my rewards have been consistent.

And I say this now when we are in this horrible bear market.

Yesterday, I updated my portfolio stats, as I do every month. I even decided to update the Splinterlands land plot value to the market value, although I wouldn't sell it so low. This is a keeper anyway. I used to default it to a x5 higher price. So, here we are... at the market price.

Even so, compared to the beginning of 2021 (which is the first year when I had complete monthly stats - before then they weren't worth enough to justify the time necessary to track down the information and keep the records), we are talking about an almost 6x growth. After one year and a half, half of it bull, half of it bear.

That's time in the market. Even during a bear market, that's still 6x. Wish I had records from the end of the previous bear market. From September 2020, for example, it's over 9x growth. Splinterlands is responsible for a lot of that growth which overflowed in other areas as well, even though its assets are far from ATHs now as well (and I calculate at current market prices).

An important note needs to be made here. I started from a very low point, so growth in percentages is much easier the less you have. Mainly because you can more effectively focus on what and where you have.

When you have (much) more, it's important to grow when the market grows, and to protect that growth when the market seriously pulls back.