A Dead Ladybug

Yesterday was a total shit show.

No, I'm not talking about the markets or the economy or the news.

I'm talking about my 3 year old daughter who had peanut butter in her hair but refused to let us brush it before school, my 5 year old son bouncing the basketball around the kitchen where our 8 week old baby is screaming because her diaper needs to be changed.

Somehow we made it to school drop off and I went to the office to do what I do in a market environment like this.

Hours later I picked up smiling faces full of amazing stories of their day at school. (They found a dead ladybug on the playground…. Big news.)

And last night, as I always do, my daughter asked me to hold her hand while she falls asleep. It doesn't get any better than that (picture below).

It was a great day -- a complete and combined experience. You have to endure the chaos to receive the reward.

You're probably seeing a lot of articles and commentary about markets and investing right now. This isn't one of them. Because, if it were, I'd highlight S&P 500 annual total returns, including dividends, for even just the past 5 years:

2025 (thus far): -13.7%

2024: 25.02%

2023: 26.29%

2022: -18.11%

2021: 28.71%

2020: 18.40%

And because this isn't an investing blog, I also won't point out that every person I know would sign up for investment experience at the beginning of 2020 if they knew this was what was going to happen and they had 5 years to leave it alone.

The bad parts of anything are easy to focus on, but the combined experience is what matters.

Again, this is not an investing blog.

—Adam Harding, sherpa