This Time, It's Different

The four most dangerous words in investing are: “this time it's different."

—Sir John Templeton

How far can a pithy quote go toward helping you understand something?

Sometimes, a conventional mantra overreaches, and you end up with a useless platitude instead of a chunk of actionable wisdom.

Other times, the quote hits the nail on the head.

Sir John Templeton’s observation here uses financial markets as the lens through which he creates some actionable advice, but it might as well be referring to anything. Templeton himself was a bit of a polymath, finding success in investing, but finding wonder in various different facets of life.

He would have been about 18 years old when the bottom fell out of the stock market in 1929. Over two incredibly harrowing days, investors watched as the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 13% one day, then 12% the next. Within 3 years, the market was down almost 90% from all time highs.

Templeton knew this wasn’t the first horrible crash, either. The ap…