GregLoire

And there was a heart condition or something? I'm struggling to piece this together as well.

we will see a shift back towards active styles

Really? How can actively managed funds justify their higher expense ratios if they can't outperform passive indexing on a consistent basis? Active trading on open markets already prices stocks where the "professionals" think it should be priced, so what advantage do you think active fund managers have? Because historically, it's been none.

And yes, obviously we'd all love to get in on a stock like Microsoft or Amazon early. But investing in small/micro cap stocks doesn't yield better returns on average, even with the big wins factored in. Most accounts/strategies that would have purchased those stocks at those times would have bought plenty of losers too.

I felt similarly when my grandparents' mental health deteriorated (but not from diseases)

It's always from a disease. Contrary to common stereotypes, people don't naturally go senile with age. It's just that their odds of developing a mental health disorder increases a lot.

I think I speak for everyone here when I say that we all want to hear more about the slow clap. Where was it? How did it happen? Who was there? Whom was the clap for? Did the clapping eventually erupt into cheers, as someone was lifted into the air and carried through the crowd during inspirational background music? What lesson did you ultimately learn from the experience that you could summarize for young children with a single one-liner?

Why? That makes zero sense. There are already passive funds that index stocks automatically by defensive metrics (large market cap and high dividend, for example). It's not like active funds have outperformed passive ones in previous bear markets either.