And here’s the worst case:

• Stocks fell almost 90% during the Great Depression.
• Stocks dropped 50% during a brutal recession in 1937.
• From the 1940s to the 1980s, long-term government bonds lost around 60% of their value after accounting for inflation.
• Stocks earned a 0% real return from 1966-1982 because inflation was running at 7% per year.
• Stocks crashed 22% in one day and 33% in one week in 1987.
• Japanese stocks are still well below their 1989 peak.
• Stocks got chopped in half in 2000-2002 and 2007-2009.

Obviously, this provides a wide range of potential outcomes which makes thing both compelling and infuriating in the markets.

Not only do we not know when the best, worst, or base case will prevail, there’s always an element of luck in terms of where you are in your investing lifecycle for how these different scenarios will impact your bottom line.

Young people should pray for the worst case scenario so they can put money in periodically at lower prices.

Retirees should pray for the best case so as to avoid seeing a bear market hurt they portfolio when they don’t have the savings to take advantage.

The path for each individual investor likely lies somewhere in between the best, base, and worst cases. Anyone who invests for the long run should expect to see some version of each over the course of their investing lifetime.

But if you’re looking to predict what will happen in the markets for the future scenario, there aren’t too many guarantees.

I’m constantly asked about the possibility of certain scenarios — market crashes, inflationary shocks, rising interest rates, low return environments, etc. — and the probability of their occurrence.

My new answer:

More than never. Less than always.

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