Regret After The Storm

It's the fifth anniversary of the COVID crisis. A reminder that "this, too, shall pass" remains a great strategy in investing and life.

Rewind to March 2020: fear gripped investors worldwide as the COVID-19 pandemic brought economies to a standstill. Stock prices were in free fall, leaving investors grappling with uncertainty and fear. To feel the sheer panic of that moment, this was the state of the market on the morning of 23rd March, 2020:

In hindsight, the March 2020 crash presented a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Those who had the courage to invest during this period were handsomely rewarded. Stocks purchased during those dark days turned out to be some of the most lucrative investments in recent history. Sample the returns of some frontline stocks bought in that month and held to date.

It’s no surprise that investors who did not invest during this crash later regretted their decision. However, even those who bought found themselves looking back with a sense of regret, wishing they had invested more. I know a very successful fund manager who confessed that he had never bought as much as he did in the third week of March 2020, and yet he still felt he could have bought more.

These missed opportunities remind me of a beautiful poem by Tagore from his collection Gitanjali, which won him the Nobel Prize.

Just as the beggar hesitated to give his all, investors often hesitate to invest during market crashes, only to realize later the immense potential they missed. Yet, hindsight teaches us that crises are rare opportunities to create wealth—if we have the courage, conviction, and cash to act.

• Courage is essential because crises often bring fear and uncertainty. In such moments, it can feel like the world is falling apart, making it difficult to step forward when others are retreating. Yet history has shown that markets recover, and those who act boldly during periods of turmoil are often the ones rewarded. Courage comes from understanding that short-term chaos offers long-term investors opportunities for significant gains at relatively low risk, with a high margin of safety.
• Conviction comes from preparation and belief in what to buy. Without conviction, it’s easy to second-guess yourself in the heat of a crisis. To build conviction, investors need to do their homework in advance—identify quality stocks, sectors, or assets with strong fundamentals and long-term potential. When a crisis hits, having this clarity helps you act decisively instead of getting blind-sided.
• Cash is what enables you to seize opportunities. No matter how much courage or conviction you have, you need cash to buy. Therefore, in the later stages of the bull market, every long-term investor must move some, even a small, part of the portfolio into cash. This is not easy but necessary, as we have detailed in our previous post, Positioning for the Next Market Phase.

Crises and corrections are inevitable. There will always be moments when markets are overwhelmed by fear and uncertainty. These are the times when the seeds of regret are often sown, as investors look back and wish they had acted when opportunities were abundant. The key is to avoid forced selling and act boldly during these periods of panic. With the right preparation, every crisis holds the potential to become an opportunity.

Related post: Learning to Live with Volatility (and profit from it)