You know that specific feeling, right? Oh, I
know it well. It's almost a physical sensation.
You wake up, maybe you're having a great morning,
sun is shining. Yeah, coffee's brewing. Coffee's
brewing, exactly. And you grab your phone, you're
not even planning on it, but your thumb just
sort of, it drifts. It has a mind of its own.
It does. Right over to that little finance app.
The one you promised yourself you'd only check,
you know, once a week. The modern reflex. We're
all just... tethered to that data stream. We
are. And you tap it. And just like that, the
sunshine, the coffee, it all just fades away
because the screen is, it's just red. A sea of
red. A sea of red. Every single arrow is pointing
down. The percentages are all negative. It looks
like someone just, I don't know, spilled paint
all over your future. It is a visceral shock.
I think, you know, psychologists might even call
it a kind of micro trauma. Really? Sure. The
brain literally sees red. And the amygdala, the
fear center, it just fires up. It signals danger.
It signals loss. It absolutely feels like danger.
It's that pit in your stomach and your internal
monologue just starts spiraling. You're thinking,
okay, this is it. This is the big one. The bubble
has burst. The bubble has burst. The sky is falling.
I'm going to have to cancel that vacation. I'm
going to have to start looking at vans down by
the river. Right. It's an immediate jump to the
worst case scenario. And then you make the biggest
mistake. You open a news app and the headlines
are just pouring gasoline on the fire. They're
screaming words at you. Crash, plunge, collapse.
Bloodbath. That's always a popular one. Bloodbath,
yes. It feels like total unmitigated chaos. And
it certainly feels that way to the individual
investors sitting at their kitchen table. But
here's the thing, and this is really the core
of what we need to get into today. Okay. If you
were to walk onto a professional trading floor
at that exact moment, or more accurately in 2026,
if you looked into the logic centers of the trading
algorithms, you wouldn't find chaos. You wouldn't
find panic. No. You would find a playbook. A
playbook. That is exactly what we are here to
talk about today. Because while the rest of us
are hyperventilating. The financial experts,
the historians, the quants, they are looking
at that same sea of red and they are measuring
it. They're using a ruler. They aren't screaming.
They're classifying. Exactly. They have a specific
name for what is happening. And contrary to what
your anxiety is telling you, it is usually not
the apocalypse. No. Usually it's just a correction.
Today on The Deep Dive, we are tackling the market
correction. And our mission... It's pretty simple,
but I think it's incredibly important. We want
to take you from that state of panic where you're
watching your portfolio shrink and your heart
rate is just going through the roof and get you
to a place of understanding. We want to look
at the precise mechanics, the hard definitions,
and the history of what a correction actually
is. Because in finance, words really matter.
Precision matters. A bad day is not a correction.
A crash actually has no technical definition.
It's just a scare. word we use, but a correction.
A correction is a mathematical certainty. It
has boundaries. It has rules. And knowing those
rules can save you. It can save you a lot of
anxiety and it can probably save you from making
some very, very expensive mistakes like, you
know, selling everything at the absolute bottom.
Which is what your panic is telling you to do.
Always. So we are pulling this straight from
the data. We've got our sources here and we're
focusing specifically on the definitions and
historical data found in the Wikipedia entry
for market correction. And I have to say. prepping
for this, I was surprised by how much I thought
I knew, but didn't. It's one of those terms we
hear so often, we assume we know the specifics.
Exactly. And the source includes some really
fascinating, really specific data from the year
2025 that we are definitely going to get into
later. Oh, that was a textbook year for this
concept. I mean, if you want to understand the
anatomy of a market drop, the 2025 event is the
perfect specimen. It's like a lab sample of market
psychology and math just colliding. It really
was. So the goal here is by the end of this hour,
the next time the market dips, and let's be honest,
that's what markets do. It's inevitable. You're
going to be the smartest person in the room.
You won't be freaking out. You'll be looking
at the chart and saying, ah, yes, we are approaching
the threshold. The mechanics are at work. That
is the goal, to replace emotion with mathematics.
I love that. To replace fear with recognition.
OK, let's unpack this. We hear this term all
the time on the news. The market is in correction
territory. Stocks are correcting. But let's start
with the absolute most basic question. What exactly
is a correction? Is it just a vibe? Is it just
when everyone feels gloomy? No. If we look at
the source material, the definition is it's actually
incredibly rigid. It is not a vibe. It's not
a sentiment. It is a number. A stock market correction
is typically defined as a drop of more than 10
% in the value of a stock index. 10%. So that's
the magic number. That is the magic number. And
the source is very, very specific about this.
It's not just a folk wisdom thing. It actually
cites reputable institutions, U .S. News, The
New York Times, as the standard bearers for this
exact definition. So it's an industry consensus.
It's an industry consensus, a hard line in the
sand. OK, so let's play with that for a second,
because that specificity is what people miss,
I think. If the market drops 9 .5 percent, what
is that? Then you are just having a bad run.
You are in a dip, maybe a pullback. A slump.
A slump, sure. But technically, you are not in
a correction. And if it drops 10 .1%. Boom. The
label changes instantly. You are officially in
a correction. It's so interesting that it's such
a bright line. I feel like in just, you know,
regular conversation, we use correction to mean
things are just cooling off. Like, oh, the housing
market is correcting and we just mean it's not
totally insane anymore. But for stocks, there's
a distinct mathematical threshold. And that is
where that colloquial, that casual usage gets
us into trouble. In the world of financial economics,
as our source highlights, these terms trigger
different responses. Institutional investors,
algorithms, pension funds, they often have rules
written right into their charters or their code.
Oh, wow. That trigger based on these definitions.
So the difference between a 9 .9 % drop and a
10 .1 % drop isn't just a fraction of a percent.
It's a fundamental shift in status. It changes
the narrative entirely. So it's like the difference
between... a tropical depression, and a category
one hurricane. Yeah, it is a great analogy. One
represents bad weather. The other initiates like
emergency protocols. The wind speed might only
be a few miles per hour different, but that classification
changes everything. It changes everything. And
just like a hurricane, the measurement of a correction
has very specific rules on how you track it.
You don't just, you know, stick a wet finger
in the wind. Right. And this is the part that
I found really tricky when I was reading through
the source. When do you measure it from? Is it
from January 1st? Is it from yesterday's class?
Is it from the moment I personally bought the
stock? This is probably the most important concept
to grasp, and it's one that the source highlights
very clearly. Corrections are almost always measured
retrospectively. Retrospectively. So looking
backward. Exactly. You measure from the most
recent high. The most recent high. To the lowest
closing price. Okay. Walk me through that. Because
retrospectively implies we don't really know
what's happening while it's happening. That's
the tricky part. So let's visualize it. Imagine
the S &P 500 hits a new all -time high on a Tuesday.
Everyone's celebrating. The bulls are running.
Champagne corks are popping on Wall Street. That
Tuesday, that specific day, is your recent high.
That's your anchor point. Got it. Tuesday is
the peak of the mountain. The peak of the mountain.
Then on Wednesday, the market drops 2%. On Thursday,
another 3%. The next week, it just keeps sliding
down. So we're in the slide. The accounts are
bleeding. I'm feeling that pit in my stomach
again. You are in the slide, but you don't actually
know it's a correction yet. You're just watching
your money evaporate. You might think, oh, it's
just a dip. You might even think, hey, good time
to buy. It is only when that drop crosses that
10 % threshold. calculated specifically from
that Tuesday high. That one specific day. That
one specific day that you can then look back
and say, okay, we are in a correction. So you
can't really know you're in a correction until
you're already correcting. In many ways, yes.
Think about it like a storm system. When the
rain starts, you don't know if it's just a sprinkle
of thunderstorm or a torrential downpour that's
going to flood your basement. You just know it's
raining. It's only when you look back and you
say, okay, the water level hit this mark that
you can classify the storm. In the market, you're
looking at the peak, the absolute highest point
the index reached, and then you are measuring
the fall from that specific peak. That makes
sense logically, but it's also kind of terrifying
for the investor, isn't it? It is. Because while
you're in the middle of that 5 % drop or that
8 % drop, you don't know if it's going to stop
there or if it's going to trigger that 10 % label.
You are living in total uncertainty. That is
the price of admission for being in the stock
market. Uncertainty is the currency. That's a
good way to put it. But the definition helps
frame the history. When we look back at financial
history, we... Ignore the 8 % drops. They're
just noise. They're blips on the radar. The 10
% drops, the corrections, those are the signals.
Those are the events that get recorded in the
history books. They signify a meaningful shift
in valuation. So if I'm looking at my portfolio
and I'm down 10 .5 % from where I was last month,
I can officially turn to my spouse and say, honey,
we're surviving a correction. You can. Yeah.
And I think there's a psychological comfort in
that. How so? It's not just random chaos anymore.
It's a recognized. defined market event. It has
a name. It's happened before many, many times,
and it will happen again. It's part of the natural
life cycle of the market. It's like getting a
diagnosis, right? Once you have a name for the
problem, it's less scary. Oh, I just have a correction.
It's not some mystery illness anymore. Precisely.
And just like an illness, the symptoms are very
specific. And knowing those symptoms helps you
distinguish it from something much, much worse.
Let's talk about those symptoms. Because a correction
isn't the worst thing that can happen, is it?
No. It's bad. It hurts. But there's something
worse out there. The monster in the closet. There's
always something worse. And this brings us to
the next big critical comparison in our source
material. The difference between a correction
and a bear market. Yeah, bear market. That's
the term that really strikes fear into people's
hearts. It does. That sounds like years of eating
cat food. That sounds like newsreels from the
Great Depression. And justifiably so. If a correction
is a tropical storm. A bear market is the Category
5 hurricane that just sits over your house for
a week and tears the roof off. Okay, so if 10
% is the line for a correction, what's the line
for the bear? Where do we cross over into that
real danger zone? The source defines a bear market
as a sustained drop of more than 20%. 20%. Okay,
so double the trouble. Double the percentage,
yes. But here's where it gets really interesting.
The source material points out a distinction
that goes beyond just the math. It describes
the nature of the drop. Right. And I think this
is fascinating because it sort of contradicts
how we often feel in the moment. Yeah, I saw
this part. It used three very specific adjectives
to describe corrections compared to bear markets.
And they were not the words I expected. I expected
the bear market to be described as the more violent
one. But it's the opposite. The source describes
corrections as shorter, sharper, and steeper.
That sounds, I mean, that sounds violent. Shorter,
sharper, steeper. It does, doesn't it? Let's
break those down because they really paint a
picture of what living through a correction actually
feels like. Okay, let's start with sharper. What
does that imply? Sharp implies a knife. It implies
a cut, something sudden, painful, but clean in
a way. Think of the angle of the line on the
chart. A bear market might look like a long rolling
hill going down or a slow staircase. A correction
looks like a cliff. It just drops fast. It takes
your breath away. And steeper. That sounds similar.
It's the same idea, really. If you're hiking
and the trail gets steep, you're descending very
rapidly over a short horizontal distance. In
market terms, it means you are losing a lot of
value in very, very few trading sessions. You
go to lunch, you come back, and the market is
down another 2%. Okay, so fast and brutal. And
then the last one, shorter. And that's the glimmer
of hope. That is the silver lining in all of
this. Right. Shorter means it doesn't last forever.
It is an event, not an era. An event, not an
era. I like that. Now, contract that with how
the source describes a bear market. The source
describes a bear market as a sustained drop.
Sustained. That word just feels heavy. It feels
like a weight, doesn't it? A sustained drop is
one that grinds on and on. It's not just a shock.
It's a trend. It's month after month of pessimism.
It's the slow painful erosion of value. It's
not a cliff. It's a long, slow slide into a ditch.
It is. It implies a fundamental shift in the
economy where optimism just drains away over
time. Yeah. It's like a slow leak in a tire that
eventually leaves you completely flat on the
highway in the middle of nowhere. So the correction
is like a flash flood. It's violent. It's scary.
It's fast. But then it's over. Exactly. And the
bear market is like a drought. It just dries
everything up over a long, agonizing period.
That is a brilliant analogy. The flash flood,
the correction might actually do damage more
quickly. It's sharper. It feels more intense
day to day. But the drought, the bear market,
that changes the landscape for a long, long time.
It changes behavior. It's just so fascinating
to me that the correction is described as sharper
and steeper. You'd automatically think the bear
market being the bigger percentage loss would
be the steeper one. Not necessarily. A bear market
can be a death by a thousand cuts. It can drop
1 % a week for 20 straight weeks. That's a bear
market. But a correction might drop 10 % in just
three days. That is sharper. It's deeper. But
the total loss ends up being less. So the correction
is more dramatic in the moment, but the bear
market is more fatal in the long run. Precisely.
The correction is a panic attack. The bear market
is a clinical depression. Wow. Okay. That really,
really frames it. And I think this distinction
is so important because when we see that shark...
Steep drop. Our brains immediately assume it's
the end of the world. Right. This is the big
one. But if we know that sharp and steep is actually
the signature of a correction, which is the lesser
of the two evils, maybe we can stay just a little
bit calmer. That is the hope. You recognize the
signature. You see the chart and you say, this
is sharp. This is steep. This fits the profile
of a correction. This is the flash flood, not
the drought. Now, we can talk about definitions
all day, but nothing beats a real world example.
Nothing does. And the source gives us a doozy.
It doesn't reach back to 1929 or 1987. It looks
at something very, very recent. Yes, the 2025
example. And this is where it gets really interesting.
Because... If you are an investor in 2025, you
lived through this. You felt this. But looking
at the dates and the numbers now, in hindsight,
it is just a masterclass in what a correction
looks like. It's almost like the market read
the textbook definition and said, OK, watch this.
It really is. It checks every single box of the
definition we just discussed. Yeah. It illustrates
the timeline, the magnitude and the recovery.
perfectly. So let's look at the timeline. The
source identifies the start of this correction,
that recent high we talked about, as February
19th, 2025. Okay, so let's set the scene. Mid
-February. Winter is ending. The market is at
a peak. Everyone is feeling good. Portfolios
are looking fat. People are probably planning
their summer vacations based on their 401k gains.
And then the turn, the drop begins. And it does
not take long to find the bottle. The source
says the lowest point was reached on April 8th.
2025. Just think about that duration for a second.
February 19 to April 8. That's, let me do the
math here. That is less than two months. Roughly
seven weeks. About 48 days. That is incredibly
fast. That is the literal definition of shorter.
In less than 60 days, the market did all of its
damage and hit rock bottom. And sharper too.
I mean, to lose that much value in just seven
weeks, that must have felt like an absolute free
fall. Oh, absolutely. If you were checking your
account in March of 2025, It would have felt
like the world was ending every day, just down,
down, down. That fits the steeper description
perfectly. The angle of the line on the chart
would have been almost vertical. You're looking
at it thinking, is there even a bottom or does
this just go to zero? But here is the number
that really blew my mind when I was reviewing
this. We talked about the 10 % threshold for
a correction and the 20 % threshold for a bear
market. Right. How much did the S &P 500 drop
in this 2025 event? According to the source,
it fell exactly 18 .9%. 18 .9%. Just let that
sink in for a moment. That is, I mean, that is
excruciatingly close to being a bear market.
It is 1 .1 % away from being reclassified as
a bear market. Can you just imagine the tension
on April 8th of that year? The market is down
18 .9 % if it drops just another percent and
a half. Everything changes. The headlines change
from correction to bear market. The algorithms
change their behavior. The psychology on the
street changes. People start talking about recession
and depression. It was teetering right on the
edge of the cliff. It's like a car skidding on
ice and stopping with its front wheels hanging
right over the canyon. And this highlights why
these definitions are so fascinatingly precise.
Technically, mathematically, it was a correction.
It stopped at 18 .9%. But emotionally, if you
lived through it, that felt like a bear. Totally.
I mean, if you lose almost 19 % of your portfolio,
you aren't sitting there comforting yourself
by saying, well, thank goodness I didn't lose
20%. At least it wasn't an official bear. No,
you are not popping champagne because you only
lost 19%. You're probably feeling physically
ill. You're feeling sick. But for the historians.
And for the economists, that distinction matters.
Because it stayed under that 20 percent line,
it goes into the history books as a correction.
It maintains that identity of being a short,
sharp event rather than a sustained collapse.
And it really was short because let's look at
the other side of it, the recovery. We hit the
bottom on April 8th. The bleeding stopped. So
when was it all over? The source states that
the index set a new all -time high on June 27,
2025. So from February 19th to June 27th, the
entire drama, start to finish, peak to new peak.
Yep. That's just over four months. Four months.
You blinked and you missed it. Yeah. Well, you
didn't miss the pain, but in the grand scheme
of a 30 -year investment horizon, a four -month
dip. is a blip. It's a footnote. It's a blip,
but what a roller coaster of a blip. And that
is the classic profile. It hits hard, it hits
fast, and then, and this is so key, it recovers.
It bounces back. That brings us to a really important
rule about recovery, because I think a lot of
people get this wrong. I know I sort of did before
really digging into this. I always thought about
what recovery means in the wrong way. Ah, okay.
What's the common misconception? Well, I always
figured a correction was over when the bleeding
stopped. You know, like, OK, it stopped going
down for a few days. We're stable. Correction
over. Or maybe when you gain back, say, half
of what you lost, you think, OK, we're on the
upswing now. We're good. No. That is not how
the math works. And the source is very, very
strict about this. So what is the rule? The rule
is this. Corrections end once stocks attain new
highs. New highs. Not just get back to even.
New high. New highs. You have to claw back every
single penny you lost, and then you have to add
one more penny on top of that. You must exceed
the previous peak. So if we look back at our
2025 example, even though the bottom was April
8th, we were still technically in a correction.
On April 9th and on May 1st and on June 1st.
Yes, absolutely. Even though prices were rising
through May and early June and people were probably
feeling better. Sure, feeling relieved. You were
still living in the correction era. Until that
one moment on June 27th, 2025, when the S &P
500 number ticked just above whatever it was
on February 19th, the correction was technically
ongoing. That feels, I don't know, it feels strict.
It feels like the market is holding a grudge.
You're not forgiven yet. It is strict. Yeah.
But it's designed to prevent false hope. It prevents
us from celebrating a dead cat bounce. Right.
You know, where the market jumps up a little
bit for a day or two before continuing its fall.
Yeah. The rule says you are not out of the woods
until you are higher than you have ever been
before. Only then is the old trend truly broken.
I like that. It's like. You haven't recovered
from a broken leg just because the cast is off.
Right. You've recovered when you can run faster
than you could before you broke it. That is a
perfect way to put it. You aren't just healing.
You are surpassing. Now, there is a really interesting
quote in the source references about this whole
in and out idea. It's from Mark DeCambra at MarketWatch.
And I love this because it adds a bit of human
frustration to all the math. Yes, DeCambra. Yeah.
He gets a little frustrated with the media coverage
of these events. You can see why. He says, and
I'm quoting here, stop saying the Dow is moving
in and out of correction. That is not how stock
market moves work. I can just hear the exacerbation
in his voice. He's probably yelling at the television
screens in the newsroom. Totally. But what's
he getting at there? Why is he so annoyed by
that phrasing? He's fighting against that day
-to -day volatility sensationalism. You know
how it goes. The market drops 10 .1 % on a Tuesday.
So the news ticker says. Breaking news, we are
in a correction. Then on Wednesday, it bounces
up a bit, so now it's only down 9 .9 % from the
high, and they say, relief, we are out of correction.
Then Thursday, it drops again. It's exhausting.
It's emotional whiplash. As an investor, you
don't know whether you should be buying or selling
or just hiding under your desk. It's exhausting,
and it's completely inaccurate. DeCambra's point,
which aligns perfectly with the definition we
just discussed, is that a correction is a status.
It's a mode the market enters. That's status,
okay. Once you trigger that 10 % drop, you are
in that status. You don't just toggle out of
it because you have one good afternoon of trading.
Yeah. You stay in that box until you hit a brand
new high. It's like being in a tunnel. You are
in the tunnel until you exit the other side into
the sunshine. You aren't out of the tunnel just
because the lights got a little bit brighter
in the middle for a second. Exactly. And having
that discipline. Helps investors stay calm. If
you know you're in the tunnel, you stop reacting
to every little flick of the switch. You just
wait for the exit. You stop looking at the daily
fluctuations and you start looking for that new
high. You realize that until that new high is
reached, everything else is just noise inside
the tunnel. That's a powerful mindset shift.
OK, so we've talked a lot about stocks, the S
&P 500, the Dow. But the source mentions that
this term isn't exclusive to Wall Street tickers,
right? No, not at all. The concept of a correction
applies to almost any asset class that fluctuates
in price. It's a universal economic principle,
really. And the source specifically mentions
commodities. Right. Think about oil, gold, wheat,
copper. These things have prices, and those prices
can get overheated, just like stocks. When they
drop by 10 % or more from a recent peak, that
is also called a correction. If oil goes from
$100 a barrel down to $89, you'll hear the pundits
on TV saying oil is correcting. And then there's
the big one, the one that hits home for literally
everyone, whether they invest or not, housing.
The housing market. Yes, the source explicitly
cites the 2000s United States housing market
correction. Now that brings up some memories
for a lot of people. That was a really painful
time. It does. And it shows that the mechanics
are the same. Even if the asset is different,
prices went up and up and up. They went too high.
They detached from fundamental reality. And then
they corrected violently. But a housing correction
feels very different from a stock correction,
doesn't it? I mean, I can sell a stock in a second.
I click a button on my phone and it's gone. You
can't sell a house in a second. That's absolutely
true. The liquidity is completely different.
Right. Can't day trade your bedroom. But the
math is the same. And the underlying principle
behind it is the same. The market is trying to
find. what the source calls the new equilibrium
price. New equilibrium price. That sounds very
zen. It sounds very philosophical. It is the
most philosophical part of economics, I think.
Think about what a correction is actually doing.
Why does it happen? Why do we have to go through
all this pain? Yeah, why can't the line just
go up forever in a nice, orderly fashion? That
would be nice. Why can't my house just be worth
more every single day? Because eventually, buyers
and sellers can't agree on the price anymore.
The price gets too high, it gets irrational.
And the buyers, they effectively go on strike.
They say, I'm out. And they say, I'm not paying
that. That's crazy. That price is not connected
to reality. So the market has to come down to
find a level where people are willing to step
in and buy again? Correct. It is searching for
balance. It is searching for that equilibrium.
The correction is the mechanism the market uses
to say, OK, OK, we all got a little carried away.
The hype was too much. The real sustainable value
is somewhere down here. So in a way, is the correction
the truth? That is a profound way to put it.
And I think, yes, the correction is the reality
check. The boom might have been the fantasy.
The bubble was the collective dream. The correction
is gravity reasserting itself. That, you know,
that actually makes me feel better about the
whole thing. It's not a disaster. It's a reality
check. It's the market fixing itself. It is the
market doing its job. A market that never corrects
is a market that is lying to you. It's building
up pressure that will lead to a much bigger problem
down the road. Okay, so let's try to summarize
all of this. We've covered a lot of ground definitions,
math, history, even a little philosophy. If we
had to build an anatomy of a correction cheat
sheet for our listeners, based on this source,
what are the key body parts? Okay, let's break
it down. The essential checklist. Let's do it.
Point one. The trigger. It starts with a drop
of more than 10%. That is a hard line. If it's
9 .9%, it's a dip. If it's 10 .1%, it's a correction.
Got it. 10 % plus. Point two, the upper limit.
It generally stops before 20%. If it breaks through
that 20 % floor, it morphs into the much scarier,
much longer bear market. The drought, not the
flash flood. Exactly. Point three, the timeline.
Remember those three adjectives, shorter, sharper,
steeper. It happens fast. It's a shock, not a
long, slow grind. Okay. And the last point, point
four, the exit. It is not over until you hit
a new high. You have to break through the old
ceiling to officially leave the room. Everything
before that is just recovery within the correction.
And the example to keep in your head through
all of this is 2025. The 2025 S &P 500 event
is the perfect case study. February to June,
down 18 .9 percent, scaring everyone to death
and then recovering to record heights just a
couple of months later. It really illustrates
the transient nature of these things, doesn't
it? It feels so permanent when you're in it,
when you're in that gloomy month of March 2025.
But the data shows it's just a passing phase.
A passing but necessary phase. So what does all
this mean for you, the listener? Why does knowing
the definition of retrospective measurement actually
help you on a Tuesday morning when your app is
glowing red? I think it provides a mental anchor.
It provides context. When you see a 5 % drop,
you don't panic. You say, this is noise. The
market does this. When you see a 12 % drop, you
don't despair. You can say, okay, this is a correction.
It is sharp. It is steep. But history says it
is likely to be short. It stops you from catastrophizing.
It stops you from immediately picturing that
van down by the river. Exactly. It gives you
a framework to understand the chaos. You aren't
just a victim of the market's whims. You are
an observer of a defined economic phenomenon.
You can detach yourself just a little from the
raw emotion of it. I love that. I am observing
a phenomenon. I'm going to say that to myself
next time my portfolio takes a hit. It might
not get your money back any faster, but it might
lower your blood pressure. And honestly, that
is worth something. It really is. Before we wrap
up, I want to go back to that idea you mentioned,
the new equilibrium, because it kind of haunts
me, actually. How so? Well, if the correction
is the market finding the correct price, does
that mean that the peak we were all celebrating
on February 19, 2025 was incorrect? That is the
provocative question at the heart of all of this,
isn't it? Yeah. If the market corrects down to
find its true value, it implies that the peak
was an illusion. It implies that for a little
while, We were all agreeing on a price that wasn't
real. We were all sort of sharing a collective
hallucination of wealth. And that makes you wonder
what value really means. Is it what the chart
says today? Or is it what the chart says after
the storm finally clears? Perhaps true value
is only ever visible in the rearview mirror,
just like the correction itself. You only know
what something was truly worth after the market
has stress tested it. That is definitely something
to mull over. The market is a test. And usually,
if you just wait long enough, you pass. Well
said. Thank you for taking this deep dive with
us. Hopefully, the next time that graph turns
red, you won't just see a scary color. You'll
see the math behind it. You'll know exactly what
to call it.