‘I’ve experienced every single smackdown in the market for over 50 years’

An investor who has seen decades’ worth of stock market calamities has some calming words to share.

“I’ve experienced every single smackdown in the market for over fifty years,” Doug Hartt told me by e-mail recently. “At some point in each market meltdown, my portfolio has dropped equal to the relevant indexes. It’s always come back.”

Why you should listen to Mr. Hartt: He’s a lifelong investor who bought his first stock, General Motors, back in 1965. In his working life, he served as corporate treasurer for the Nova Scotia telecom company MT&T and had a role in running the company’s pension plan.

After holding up surprisingly well to early skirmishes in the trade war, stock markets fell hard last week as the U.S. government introduced global tariffs. Financial markets hate the kind of uncertainty created by tariffs. Rising inflation, recession and declining corporate profits are top concerns.

It’s flat out painful to see your investments falling hard. But Mr. Hartt suggests that moments like these have a purpose in helping people weather the downturns that are inevitable when they invest for the long term. “With huge calluses, I ‘ho-hum’ through today’s portfolio summaries,” he wrote.

Something what makes hard-falling stock markets difficult to bear is that the news is everywhere. I woke up to a CBC Radio newscast the other day that led off with stock markets around the world in turmoil. It’s a sign that markets are really suffering when the story migrates off the business pages and into general news.

Take heart from Mr. Hartt. The market does always come back over time. Declines like we’re seeing right now are hard to watch, but they do build your investing calluses.