If you're under 40, this is one of the best buying opportunities you'll get this year. Run the math on what happens when you buy at these levels historically. The forward P/E just fell to 19.7x. That's below the 5-year average of 20.1x and the cheapest the index has traded since Liberation Day in April 2025. Citadel's Scott Rubner flagged it: every time the S&P forward P/E has dropped below 20x since 2020 (13 occurrences), forward returns have been positive. Over the last 50 years, the S&P has had a negative Q1 18 times. Last year it dropped 4.6% in Q1 and finished up 16.4% for the year. In 2003 it fell 3.6% in Q1 and posted 26.4% for the full year. The pattern repeats: after 10% corrections, investors who bought the dip averaged 11% returns within a year and 37% within three years. The panic math is even more telling. Miss just the 10 best trading days and your returns get cut roughly in half. Miss the top 50 and they shrink by nearly 5x. The best days almost always cluster inside the worst months. March 2026 has had 1%+ intraday swings on 14 of 18 trading days. The snapback days are hiding inside this exact volatility. Everyone sharing this chart is seeing a 7.6% decline. The people who build wealth from these moments are seeing a forward P/E in the 6th percentile of its one-year range, Wall Street consensus calling for 10-20% upside, and 50 years of data confirming that selling here is almost always the wrong trade. The worst time to look at your portfolio is the best time to add to it.
