5 Things Investors Are Worrying About

1. "Should We Get Out Of The Market Until Things Settle Down?"

The market is almost impossible to time consistently. Getting out requires being right twice: once when you sell and once when you get back in, and the odds of beating the market doing that are close to zero. Since 1980, the S&P 500 has had an average peak-to-trough drop of nearly 14% every single year, and yet the long-term return has been extraordinary. The only way to earn those long-term returns is to be willing to sit through the declines.

2. "Should I Invest Gradually To Avoid Buying At The Top?"

The instinct makes sense, but the data does not support it. The market has been positive in about 75% of all rolling 12-month periods since 1926, which means if you spread investments out over a year, the odds are three to one that you would have been better off just going all in.

And the longer you stretch the timeline, the worse those odds get. We understand that it would feel terrible to invest a big chunk right before a drop. But in the long run, there really is no wrong time to be invested in a diversified equity portfolio.

3. "Why Do Stocks Continue To Go Up?"

The simple answer is that stock prices largely follow earnings over time.

Good companies grow their earnings, or their expectations of future earnings, and their stock prices reflect that over the long run. Yes, there will be volatility along the way driven by economic cycles and investor emotions, but the fundamental link between earnings and prices holds.

Stock prices go up because earnings go up. That connection is what we are betting on when we invest.

4. "What If The Dollar Loses Its Reserve Currency Status?"

The dollar holds its position not because the U.S. is fiscally responsible, but because every alternative is worse.

As of year-end 2025, the dollar made up nearly 58% of all global central bank reserves, with the euro a distant second at under 20%. The Chinese yuan, often cited as the leading alternative, held just 2.18% of global reserves.

Even over the past decade, the dollar's share of global reserves has edged down only gradually while the euro has stayed broadly stable. By that measure, the dollar's position at the center of the global financial system remains firmly intact.

5. "Isn't The National Debt Going To Be A Problem?"

Probably at some point. No country can grow its debt faster than its GDP forever. But nobody knows when or how markets will respond if it becomes a real problem, or if we will course correct before this happens.

People have predicted this crisis for a long time. The bond market would be the first place to show real distress, and right now it isn't. If the U.S. ever has trouble rolling over its debt, that's where it'll show up first.

Sources: Calamos Investments, "Significant Intra-Year Drawdowns Are Common"; Aswath Damodaran, "Historical Returns on Stocks, Bonds and Bills: 1928-2025," NYU Stern; International Monetary Fund, Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) database, 2025 Q2 and Q4, IMF Data.

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