Despite the noise around the Strait of Hormuz, a jumpy market, oil that had spiked well above $100, and a 10-year yield that briefly kissed 5%, we have felt reasonably secure with the portfolio.

That does not mean it has been pretty. There have been plenty of days when the account looked redder than Rudolph’s nose and dropped harder than it had any right to. We stayed the course anyway. Dividends went straight back in. So did the monthly savings. Writing about patience is cheap; staring at a bleeding screen and still executing the buy order is where the thesis gets tested. If you have the timeline, market panic is just a pricing mismatch.

Late summer we added to $ADC, $O, $PEP, and $WPC. We also took a substantial profit in $NOW and scaled the position back. This is not a buy recommendation. It is simply a record of the trades we actually made.

Our 19-year-old is home every evening now that his girlfriend is at university in London. He has grasped the “disguised opportunity” bit. He points out, with a hint of gleeful satisfaction, that these dips are even better for him because he is, unlike us —quote—“not older than dirt.”

Every month the world’s most perfect teenager receives just over 4,000 SEK in study allowance from Swedish taxpayers. He lives at home. We cover the bills, minus the nights he chooses the university pub. He puts 1,500 SEK of that money into the market.

That is the whole point. Stay invested. Reinvest. Use the ugly days. Age is a feature, not a bug.

If a 19-year-old with a study grant can treat a red week as a discount, the rest of us have fewer excuses.