Did you really mean 5 years, or 5 months, or something else? I'm not sure if I can take this statement seriously, or if it's meant to be a joke. 5 years is a long time.
If you're young and you've only seen the market go up you need to familiarize yourself with normal volatility patterns. The market can easily take a dump at any time and fail to provide a positive return for years.
...or decades: "Nikkei index hits 30,000 for first time in three decades"
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/Nikkei-index-hits-3...
What should the government have done?
According to whom? Right now, nothing pays out any yield, it’s stocks or lose to inflation.
I’ve followed ARCC, MAIN and GSBD for years, and there’s the more diversified Van Eck Vectors BDC ETF (BIZD), with an 8.5% yield. But I digress.
No, what I'm saying is the government failed to act sufficiently and forced the fed to act when they shouldn't have(or at least to the level they have).
> Generally speaking, you shouldn't hold cash.
Now come on that's not really true in the short term. Generally speaking, you shouldn't put your money in the market if you need it in the next 5 years. Sure I could have bought CDs but have you looked at rates lately? That wouldn't have helped. My only option would have been to pile into an asset, and by the time I needed to park my money assets had already appreciated above historical norms. I'd be gambling against a reversion to the mean.
> Housing affordability hasn't really changed on a monthly basis
The market I am familiar with and was planning on going back into is up about 35% from late 2019. You're also then gambling that these historically high valuations will hold going forward. Homebuyer sentiment has plummeted because folks like me no longer think paying these high prices(https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CSUSHPINSA) makes sense.