stackingmyexit

Last month I wrote that I would keep these updates honest, including the months that go the other way.

October was one of those months.

It started well. Earnings season was in full swing, and partway through the month the account touched a milestone I had been watching for. A few weeks later, that and more was gone.
Month to date, the portfolio was down 17.58%. The worst single day was 16 October, at -8.88%. No deposits, no withdrawals. Just the market swinging hard on every earnings call.

Zoom out to the year and it is still up 28.98%. A month ago that number was 56.68%. Roughly half of this year's gain came off in four weeks.

Where it sits now:
91% equity
4% cash
5% crypto

The crypto slice grew a little, partly because I added to it, mostly because the equity slice shrank around it.
All of that puts me 22.1% of the way to my FIRE target, down from 26.8%.

There are two sides to a month like this.

The honest side: watching a number you have waited for appear and then slip away stings. A drawdown reads very differently when it is your own account and not a chart in an article.

The other side: my read is that the market overreacted, and I am treating October as a healthy retracement after a strong run, not a verdict on the year. I expect some of it to come back over the last two months, but I am not building the plan around that happening.

And there is a quieter silver lining. I would rather learn what a 17% month feels like now, with years of runway ahead, than meet it for the first time the year I stop working. Every month like this makes the next one a little less loud.

How did you sit through October?