This may well go down as the wildest year on record for the stock market. The uncertainty and panic caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic torpedoed equities during the first quarter, then saw them rally ferociously in the second quarter. Frankly, no one has a clue what’s going to happen in the very near term.
While volatility is often a great thing for long-term investors, given that it allows for the purchase of great stocks at a discount, it has a bit of a dark side, too.