You may be feeling a sense of panic right now...

Stocks are falling. The health of the economy is in question. And no one seems to know how bad things will get.

I understand that fear. But here's something to remember...

Every now and then, investors are just looking for a reason to sell. And when that happens, the market gives them that reason... every time.

As we like to say, "Bull markets climb a Wall of Worry." Folks fight the move higher every step of the way... even as prices keep on rising. The concern and skepticism keep the boom from overheating (and keep plenty of investors on the sidelines).

I don't know exactly how this current market move will end. But as I'll share today, most of investors' worst fears of the past decade haven't mattered much.

Instead, stocks continued climbing the Wall of Worry. And based on history, that will likely be true again this time around...

Back in February, I began putting together a list of the market's biggest fears in recent years. But after a minute, I realized something...

This is the perfect question for artificial intelligence ("AI").

At the time, we'd recently seen the market react in shock to the release of the new Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek R1. It seemed only fitting.

I pulled up ChatGPT and asked, "What was the biggest U.S. financial market worry by year from 2015 to 2024?"

Here's what it told me. This is the Wall of Worry, according to ChatGPT, over the past decade...

2015: China's Economic Slowdown: Worries about slowing growth in China triggered global market volatility and concerns about its effect on the U.S. economy.

2016: Brexit: The surprise vote by the UK to leave the EU in June sparked major uncertainty about the global economy and financial markets.

2017: Trump Administration's Policies: The uncertain impact of President Trump's proposed tax reforms, deregulation, and trade policies raised concerns about U.S. economic stability and market reactions.

2018: U.S.-China Trade War: The escalating trade conflict between the U.S. and China, including tariffs and trade barriers, created fears of global economic slowdown.

2019: Global Economic Slowdown: Worries about a global recession, fueled by trade tensions and weak economic data from major economies, heightened market anxiety.

2020: COVID-19 Pandemic: The global health crisis caused a massive market sell-off in March, with widespread fears about economic collapse and the impact on business activity.

2021: COVID-19 Variants & Inflation: The emergence of new COVID-19 variants and rising inflationary pressures were major concerns as the economy began to recover.

2022: High Inflation & Fed Rate Hikes: Record-high inflation and aggressive interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve sparked fears of a potential recession and market instability.

2023: Recession Fears & Banking Crisis: Concerns about a recession persisted as the Federal Reserve's tightening of monetary policy led to financial instability, highlighted by the collapse of regional banks.

2024: Inflation and Economic Growth: The debate over whether the U.S. could avoid a recession while managing persistent inflation and tightening monetary policy remains a key concern for markets.

I encourage you not to just skim over these points. Read them slowly. Then, try to remember how they made you feel as an investor when you lived through them.

Today, we have the benefit of hindsight. And with it, some of these "threats" feel downright silly. But in the moment... things weren't so clear.

Investors really were worried about the Chinese economy in 2015. If you turned on CNBC, it would only take a minute for the anchors to start talking about "China's hard landing."

Similarly, I remember being in Hong Kong during the Brexit vote in 2016. The folks I had dinner with that evening – dual citizens of Hong Kong and the U.K. – couldn't believe what had happened. And like everyone else, they were frightened of what it would mean for Europe and the global economy.

I could go through memories of the entire list, but the ideas would get stale fast. They're all the same...

The 2018 trade war... the concerns over new COVID-19 variants... even the 2023 banking crisis... they were all scary at the time. But today, we can see they were false alarms.

If you sold based on any of those ideas, you probably ended up kicking yourself.

I'd argue that the only real piece of news that investors should have worried about was the pandemic itself... and the inflation it helped kick-start. Those events mattered. They had real downstream financial consequences.

But even given that, simply selling based on fear at the start of the pandemic would have been a mistake. You would have missed plenty of upside after the initial bust.

History teaches us that even in a list of the biggest, most important worries, few of them spiral into the worst-case scenarios everyone expects. And that's the real lesson...

Folks are scared right now – about the economy... about tariffs... and about how bad the current decline could get.

This is completely natural. It's human to worry about what could go wrong.

But as an investor, if you act on those worries, you'll end up selling stocks because of the "next" Brexit... or an upcoming election... or a minor trade war.

In short, you'll sell because of the Wall of Worry. And you'll regret it.

Remember, this is exactly what we see in a bull market. Stocks soar in spite of concerns. They don't crash because of what might happen.

Of course, you should be prudent. Make sure you have stop losses in place and follow them. But don't panic. This current bout of fear – like almost all the rest – will likely go down as nothing more than one more brick in the Wall of Worry.

Good investing,

Brett Eversole