The Inevitable Drift Down from "Can't Lose" Owning Stocks to "Can't Win"

Even if an AI program advises selling everything and walking away from the market for five years, how many of us would take this advice?

Only those who experienced the heady euphoria of the late 1990s dot-com bubble in tech stocks know what the shift from “can’t lose” confidence to “can’t win” surrender feels like. The chart below illustrates this emotional cycle of confidence rising and fading as bubbles inflate and deflate.

Though we like to tell ourselves we’re rational investors, anim…