1 Key Investing Lesson From “Finding Nemo” Movie

I just listened to The Motley Fool Money podcast entitled “David Gardner on Investing During Tough Markets”.

In it, Chris Hill discusses with David Gardner, co-founder of The Motley Fool, about maintaining a “net buyer mindset” during a downturn and more.

Something that stood out for me during the discussion was how David Gardner connected the current market situation to a famous line from the Finding Nemo movie.

Here’s what Gardner shared in the podcast about staying the course and investing for the long term (emphases are mine):

“I would say first of all that I’m always investing, ABI always be investing. Chris, I think everybody should always be investing if you are not in retirement. If you’re not about to retire, you should be a net saver and you should just be adding that money to the market through thick and through thin. In this sense, let’s go back to Finding Nemo. …

Just keep swimming. I found myself using that as a hashtag on Twitter throughout a lot this year. I spoke to it on my podcast. It’s always true anyway. If you are earning a salary, you should be saving every two weeks and I think you should be adding it to the market in whatever way you prefer, whatever your orientation is [be it in funds or individual stocks], but just keep swimming …

I think the reason we need to say just keep swimming is not when the tide is coming in and/or the surfing feels good, I think that Dory starts saying just keep swimming because it’s a time of stress. It underscores the times when it’s hard, that’s when we need to hear that phrase, even though we should always be doing that all the time anyway.”