Part II. The Stock Market Big Picture! By Gene W. Edwards. Posted 8/18/2024.

I lost a ton of money when the Edward Jones (“E. J.,” below) people took days to finish acting on my request to stop my account when COV mostly obliterated the nest egg of many. Furthermore, E. J. hadn’t even bothered to let me know what was coming: a deadly pandemic accompanied by a COVID-19 level of financial “disease” (recession) in the entire marketplace! They just carried on like nothing happened. Edward Jones only earns a tepid, unimpressive, “C” grade in Weiss Ratings. In comparison, Invesco’s mutual funds rank a B+, all these found on the Stocks & Funds general search line in the Weiss Ratings website.

A company, such as E. J., tells you that when there is a major market downturn, just put in more money than you usually do into your account to make up the difference. How, then, do you make up for a 40% drop in the financial markets when a big event comes along, such as the dot.com bubble crisis in 1990, the banking crisis of 2008, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which hit big time by late March of 2000? The truth is, rather than having most of their workforce go home until the crisis ends, such investment companies as E. J. pretend nothing is wrong. The recovery from the stock market crash of 1929 took until the 1940s.

*****

Here’s an odd note. Occasionally search the word “death” on Google Trends. Then on the drop- down list, change “Past day” to “2004 to present.” Look at that 20-year line for spikes, particularly recent…