My First Bear Market
March 06, 2026
Forty years ago, I had my first real lesson in what markets can do.
It was Monday, October 19, 1987. Black Monday. The market fell more than 20% in a single day — still the largest one-day drop in modern market history.
I was new to the business. The people around me weren’t. These were veterans who had lived through recessions, inflation, the oil shocks of the seventies. And even they were shaken. By the end of that afternoon, nobody was talking about valuations or strategy. The question on the floor was simpler than that: Would the market even open on Tuesday?
That question felt very real in the moment.
Here’s what happened next. Twelve weeks later, the year ended — and the market finished up for 1987. After the worst single day in modern market history, investors who stayed in were ahead.
I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. Through the tech bubble, the financial crisis, the panic of early 2020 — each one felt different while it was happening. Each one eventually passed.
Downturns are genuinely painful. Bear markets test your patience in a way that good times never do. But what I took from 1987, very early in my career, is something I keep coming back to: markets recover long before confidence does. By the time most people feel ready to get back in, they’ve already missed a good part of the recovery.
Volatility is just the cost of being in the market. Panic is what keeps people from earning the returns they came for.
The headlines change. The fears change. But the lessons remain the same.
— Ward