Whatever's going on, I don't want to jinx it, but I wouldn't complain if this rate kept up.
On one hand, as a government contractor, I'm on furlough, burning through my leave, and that will be exhausted sometime in mid February. But, on the other, my portfolio has returned around 11.2%, from Christmas Eve to yesterday's market close. That equates to about two year's worth of gross pay, or FOUR year's take-home!
Still, even though I'm doing okay financially, I just don't like this uncertainty. Hopefully the market will keep improving, but I could see it going south again, without too much provocation. And, I just hate this one day at a time crap.
Some people have tried to tell me to look at this as how it would be, to be retired, but I've driven home the point with them that no, retirement would be on MY terms, and when I can afford it and am truly ready for it. This, in some ways, feels like that movie "Groundhog Day", where things just keep repeating, and I don't know when the cycle will be broken.
Just out of curiosity, I went back and looked at how things went down the last time the gov't shut down, in 2013. From October 1 to October 17, which I think was the day I went back to work, my portfolio returned around 1.7%. Which might not sound like a lot, but still came out to around two months of gross pay, or four months of take-home.