22 • RUBY, WILDING & SWANSBURG That 6 percent average return is a gross return. As we all ko nf toe wn ,i ni nc vl ueds et mmeannt sa gaerme ehnotu fseeeds . i nS ov, esho imc lee so fo tr hpaot rgtrf oo lwi ot sh twh ai l tl get eaten by fees you pay to a financial company. And, if you accessed th at 6 per cent retur n in a tax- deferred account , lik e an IRA or 401(k), some of that growth will also get eaten up by f uture taxe s . As a saver, you took all that risk—riding t he roll er coast er through booms and busts—and , i n the end , i t netted yo u maybe 4 percent a year after fees and taxes. Fou r percent is okay, but it’ s not t he 12 percent sa vers a re oft en guessing. What Comes Next? Aoft2th0e08end of 2019, many experts wondered if the bull market - 2019 woul d continu e or cra sh. In March of 2 020 , we got pa rt of ou r answer. March was whe n the COVID- 19 pandemic fully hit America. By mid-March , businesses and schools were closi ng awcor roks isn tgh ef r oc omu nht or ym. eT, haonuds atnhdosu soaf nAdms emr i oc ar en ss turdadnes ni tliyo nf eo du nt do themselves without a job at all. 13 TBhye markets reacted. mid-March , the S&P 500 ® ha d fall en 26 percent . Since the initi al crash , the S&P 500 ® has jumped around, making it clear we have entered a new phase of market volatility. 13 TED (The Economic Daily). U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. May 13, 2020. “Unemployment rate rises to record high 14.7 percent in April 2020.” 1ht4t-ppso:/in/tw-7w-pwe.rbclse.ngto-vin/-oappurbil/-2te0d2/02.h0t2m0/unemployment-rate-rises-to-record-high-
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