My Sister Finally Listened to Me and Started Investing

And Then the Economy Collapsed the Next Day

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I’m not the best salesperson in the world, but I’ve been trying to convince one of my sisters of the power of investing. She is slightly older than me (only 14 years!), but it’s never too late to start investing for your future.

No one usually listens to my advice, but that’s a story for another day.

Well, she finally listened to me after a couple of years and created an investment account with Fidelity. I told her it’s best to pick a mutual fund that tracks the S&P 500 to keep things simple. Investing in individual companies might be fun, but it’s also way too risky.

Invest a certain amount each month and forget about it. Simple, right?

She started investing a few days ago, and now the market looks like it’s crashing and burning before my eyes. Tariffs, job reports, and uncertainty across the world are just a few reasons why everything is in the red instead of green.

Of course, the stock market is no get-rich-quick scheme, but now I look like one of those snake oil salesmen selling $500 courses on how to make it rich on Medium or any other random online platform. If I had a rented Lamborghini and a fake private jet photoshoot, I’d be the full package.

Luckily, I’m no financial advisor, and she didn’t pay me anything for my amazing investment skills. (I’m very skilled at picking the wrong time to invest)

The good news is that things will eventually rebound and get better over time unless we are on the verge of World War 3 and the world actually ends. However, the most likely scenario is that the market will eventually recover, and things get back to normal.

If not, we can always start trading canned goods and bottled water in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Until then, I’ll keep telling my sister to ignore the noise and stay the course. Things that go down must go up. Hmm…wait, that doesn’t sound right.

Either way, I’m just going to act like things will eventually recover. Half the battle is looking confident, and the other half is not checking your portfolio every five minutes like a lunatic. Or, if you do check it, at least wear sunglasses so people can’t see you crying.

If the market doesn’t recover? Well, at least it wasn’t my money! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to block her number for a few weeks.