September 11 is first a day of remembrance. It also offers a sober investing lesson: history is full of events that feel unimaginable up close, and a long-term plan must be built to survive them rather than predict them.
Today is September 11, 2026. Twenty-five years ago, the attacks of September 11, 2001 took thousands of lives and changed families, cities and public life permanently. Before thinking about markets, it is right to remember the people who were killed and everyone whose life was altered by that day.
The market story is not the important story of 9/11. But it is a useful reminder that investment plans operate inside a world where terrible, surprising events do happen. U.S. markets closed for four trading days after the attacks and reopened on September 17, 2001. For investors watching from a distance, the return of prices made fear suddenly visible in numbers as well as headlines.
A shock is not a calendar event
It is tempting to say that markets get one or two “black swans” every decade. The phrase is useful only up to a point. A true black swan cannot be put on a calendar; if it could, markets would already have priced it in.
What we can say is simpler: long investment lives regularly include shocks. The aftermath of 9/11, the global financial crisis, the 2020 pandemic crash, wars, inflation shocks and sudden interest-rate changes all gave investors moments when the future seemed unusually unknowable. They were different events with different economic consequences. None proves that the next recovery will look the same.
Over a century, though, their shared lesson is not that prices always rise quickly. It is that a portfolio needs enough time, diversification and liquidity to avoid turning a frightening period into a permanent personal loss.
The first task in a crash: do not create a forced seller
“Never sell” is too simple. Sometimes a portfolio really has changed: a holding is concentrated, the money is needed soon, the risk was misunderstood, or the household’s income and health have changed. In those cases, a review may be necessary.
But selling a diversified long-term portfolio purely because the news feels unbearable is different. That decision exchanges a temporary price decline for a realised loss, then asks you to decide when it feels safe to buy again. Very few people do that calmly or consistently.
The more useful rule is this:
Do not let a market crash make decisions that should have been made before the crash.
For a FIRE household, that means separating three jobs:
- Keep near-term spending in cash or lower-volatility assets, rather than in equities you may need next year.
- Keep long-horizon money in a diversified portfolio you understand and have already chosen to hold.
- Keep fixed costs low enough that a bad market does not immediately turn into a personal emergency.
Our FIRE Resilience Stress Test is a good place to test whether a market fall, a temporary income gap and higher living costs would force you to sell at the wrong time.
Buying after a fall is a plan, not a reflex
The second lesson is harder. A fall can create better expected long-term valuations than the same assets had a year earlier. But no one knows the low while it is happening. A price that is down 25% can fall another 25%, and a dramatic headline is not a valuation method.
Instead of promising to “buy heavily at the bottom,” define a rule while markets are normal. For example:
- Continue regular contributions on their existing schedule.
- Invest a pre-decided part of any genuine surplus, rather than money needed for taxes, a home repair or the cash buffer.
- If you use a staged plan, write the amounts and dates down in advance so a further fall does not force a new emotional decision.
This is not about finding the bravest move. It is about keeping a sensible long-term allocation alive when its short-term appearance is at its worst.
Why borrowing to buy the dip is not a default FIRE strategy
When someone has no spare cash during a crash, borrowing to buy a broad index fund can look like an obvious opportunity: buy more during the fall, wait for recovery, then repay the loan. The missing part of that story is that the loan does not fall when the market does.
Margin loans can require additional cash or force sales precisely when prices are low. Personal loans and mortgages have interest costs, repayment schedules and eligibility risks that remain even if the recovery takes much longer than expected. A job loss, a rate reset or a further market decline can turn a manageable-looking position into a household problem.
For most people pursuing FIRE, leverage reduces resilience rather than increasing it. It adds a new fixed obligation at the moment the plan needs flexibility most. This article is not recommending borrowing to invest, and it cannot tell you whether a loan is suitable for you.
There are rare cases in which an investor may evaluate modest borrowing with regulated, individual advice: the debt is affordable from stable non-portfolio income, the household can still service it after a severe additional fall, there is no risk of a margin call, the cash buffer remains intact, and the investor fully understands the total interest and tax cost. Even then, it is a risk decision—not a free way to accelerate a recovery.
If the attraction of leverage is simply “I have no cash left,” the more resilient answer is usually to rebuild optionality: protect the buffer, lower a recurring cost, keep earning capacity alive, and let regular contributions do their quiet work.
A calm-market policy for the next frightening headline
Write this before you need it:
- Name the purpose of each account. Next year’s spending should not have the same job as money for 2046.
- Set the cash-buffer floor. Decide what cannot be invested, even when prices are tempting.
- Choose a contribution rule. Make regular investing automatic if that fits your finances.
- Set a review date, not a news-trigger. A quarterly or annual review is usually more useful than reacting to every alert.
- Define the exceptions. Debt, an upcoming expense, a change in employment or a broken asset allocation are reasons to reassess. Fear alone is not.
- Put borrowing in its own category. Never quietly turn an investing plan into a leveraged plan in the middle of a sell-off.
Markets do not owe us a recovery on a convenient schedule. A hundred-year view should make us humbler, not reckless. Its value is that it can stop us from treating every dark chapter as the end of the story.
Remember first, then return to the plan
On this date, financial language should stay in its place. The events of September 11 were a human tragedy, not an investing parable.
But when the next market shock arrives—and at some point it will—the practical aim is clear: protect the life you need to fund, protect the assets designed for the long run, and avoid borrowing or selling out of panic simply to make an unbearable week feel resolved.
