Doing Nothing is Hard
Michael Asadoorian - Apr 17, 2026
War, Markets, and the Art of Doing Nothing
Q1 2026 was the S&P 500's worst quarter since 2022 — down 4.6%, according to Morningstar. War in Iran, spiking oil prices, inflation creeping back into the conversation. The doomsday checklist was filling up fast. And yet — here we are, back near pre-war levels. So what happened?
Markets Have a Short Memory (and That's a Good Thing)
Deutsche Bank found that in the first three weeks of a geopolitical shock, stocks typically fall about 6% before recovering completely in the following three weeks. History keeps repeating this lesson, but investors keep forgetting it. Twelve months after a new crisis, the S&P 500 has posted an average gain of 2.92% — and after the Gaza War began in October 2023, it jumped 32.2% over the following year. Markets don't reward panic. They reward patience.
And the pattern closer to home is just as striking. Last year, the S&P 500 dropped big time in April — tariff fears that time — before rallying over the following nine months. Different headline, same lesson. The investors who sold in April 2025 missed most of that recovery.
The Noise Is Getting Louder — and Markets Are Getting Better at Ignoring It
Part of what's driving this recovery is familiar: Trump threatens, markets flinch, Trump backs off, markets rally. Whether it's tariffs or Tehran, the playbook is becoming recognizable. Markets aren't just reacting anymore — they're starting to read through the noise. That's not complacency. That's experience being priced in.
The Hardest Investment Decision You'll Ever Make
The best move most investors could have made over the past six weeks was nothing. No selling. No repositioning. No "just in case" moves. Markets swing from pessimism to euphoria and back again — rarely pausing in the middle. A disciplined financial plan helps you zoom out and focus on the long-term goal. It won't predict what markets will do next, but it keeps you focused on the one thing you can actually control: your own behaviour.
The most underrated skill in investing isn't knowing what to do. It's knowing what not to do.
"It is not the things we don't know that get us into trouble. It's the things we know for sure that just ain't so." — Mark Twain