Why Your VEQT Is Down (And Why That's Probably Fine)

Take a Breath

If you're reading this, your portfolio is probably red. Maybe very red. That's an uncomfortable feeling, especially if this is your first real market drop.

Before you do anything, let's look at what's actually happening — and what decades of market history say about what happens next.

What's Happening When VEQT Drops

VEQT holds approximately 13,000 stocks across the entire world. When VEQT drops, it means global stock markets are dropping. Your fund isn't broken. The world economy is repricing.

This is normal. Here's how normal:

• Markets drop 10%+ roughly once every 1-2 years
• Markets drop 20%+ roughly every 3-5 years
• Markets drop 30%+ roughly once a decade

These aren't exceptions to the plan — they ARE the plan. The higher long-term returns that stocks provide compared to bonds or savings accounts exist precisely because stocks are volatile. The volatility is the price of admission for higher returns. You can't have one without the other.

What History Shows

VEQT has been through this before. Since launching in January 2019:

• March 2020 (COVID crash): Global markets dropped roughly 30% in a month. VEQT followed. Within about 5 months, it had fully recovered. Investors who held through — or better, who kept buying — came out ahead.

• 2022 drawdown: Rising interest rates pushed markets down roughly 15% over several months. Recovery followed in 2023.

Looking at broader market history, every single major market decline has eventually been followed by a recovery and new highs. Every one. The 2008 financial crisis, the dot-com crash, Black Monday in 1987, the oil crisis in the 1970s — all of them recovered.

The average recovery time from a 20% decline is roughly 14-18 months. From a 30%+ decline, it's typically 2-3 years. That feels like forever when you're in it, but it's a small fraction of a 20-40 year investing horizon.

Want to see the data? Use our If You Invested calculator to check what happened if you invested right before the COVID crash in February 2020. The result might surprise you.

Why Selling Is Almost Certainly Wrong

Selling during a downturn feels like cutting your losses. In reality, it does three things — all bad:

1. It locks in a paper loss as a real loss. Right now, your loss is only on paper. Your portfolio is down in value, but you still own the same number of VEQT shares, representing the same ownership in ~13,000 companies. Selling converts that temporary paper loss into a permanent actual loss.

2. You need to be right twice. You need to correctly time when to sell AND when to buy back in. Almost nobody gets both right. Most people who sell during a crash wait too long to re-enter and miss a significant portion of the recovery.

3. Missing the best days is devastating. Markets tend to have their best days immediately following their worst days. Missing just the 10 best trading days over a 20-year period can cut your total returns roughly in half. Those best days often happen during periods of extreme volatility — exactly when panic-sellers are sitting on the sidelines.

What You Should Actually Do

If you can afford to contribute more: Do it. You're buying at a discount. Every share you buy during a downturn will be worth more when markets recover. Dollar-cost averaging into a declining market is one of the best things that can happen to a long-term investor — you're accumulating more shares at lower prices.

If you can't contribute more: Just hold. Do nothing. Close the brokerage app. Seriously. The urge to "do something" is powerful but counterproductive. The best action is inaction.

Reassess your risk tolerance — later. If a 20% drop is causing you genuine sleepless nights, you might have more equity exposure than your temperament can handle. Consider whether a balanced fund like VGRO (80% equity, 20% bonds) would let you sleep better. See our VEQT vs VGRO comparison. But — and this is critical — don't make this decision while the market is down. Wait until you're calm. Switching from VEQT to VGRO during a crash means selling equities at the worst possible time.

The only valid reason to sell: You need the money within 1-2 years for a planned, necessary expense. If that's the case, the money probably shouldn't have been in equities in the first place. Lesson learned for next time.

The Perspective Shift

If you're 25 and investing for retirement at 65, you have 40 years of investing ahead of you. A bad month — or even a bad year — is a tiny fraction of that timeline. It feels enormous right now because you're living through it. In 10 years, it'll be a blip on your chart that you barely notice.

If you're 45, you still have 20+ years. Even a multi-year bear market is recoverable with that kind of runway.

Every experienced investor has lived through multiple crashes. The ones who built wealth are the ones who kept buying through all of them. The ones who didn't build wealth are the ones who sold at the bottom and bought back at the top.

You're Going to Be Fine

Market drops feel terrible. That's not a flaw in your character — it's human psychology. We're wired to feel losses roughly twice as intensely as gains of the same magnitude. A 20% drop hurts more than a 20% gain feels good.

But the data is overwhelming: for long-term passive investors, the right move during a drop is almost always to do nothing — or to buy more. The market has recovered from every decline in history. Every single one.

Your future self will thank you for your patience today.

Need perspective? Check the VEQT Today page for current performance, use the If You Invested calculator to see how past drops recovered, or visit r/JustBuyVEQT where others are going through the same thing.

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This article reflects general investing principles and is not financial advice. If a market decline is causing genuine financial hardship or anxiety, consult a financial advisor.