I came across a great quote today and it is totally applicable to the market environment we find ourselves in.  It comes from Tim McElvaine’s newsletter (www.mcelvaine.com).  He in turn got it from an interview with Chris Davis of Davis Select Funds in the U.S.

Chris’ grandfather always said, “You make most of your money during a bear market; you just don’t realize it at the time.”

It’s easy to say, hard to do and oh so true.  Weak markets provide the fertile soil in which investors can sow the seeds of future returns. 

After the last few days, we all want to hide under our desks.  Maybe we should, but while we’re there we’ve got to be thinking about how to best use this opportunity.  The market declines have set us up for what I think will be double digit equity returns over the next few years.  We want to make sure we capture them.

To put it another way, on the ‘fear versus greed’ measure, we should be moving decidedly towards the greedy side.