I Was Wrong About Inflation and Missed a Huge Stock Rally: The One Investing Discipline That Could Have Saved Me

Investors often form a thesis, place a trade, and later let time make the original reasoning feel vaguer or more flattering. A behavioral analytics approach recommends writing the thesis down, even in a calendar, and setting a date to check it honestly. A personal example involves moving equity money into bonds in 529 accounts after an election, expecting inflation to hurt stocks. The inflation expectation proved correct, but the equity market reaction did not follow the expected pattern. The outcome was acknowledged as wrong despite the correct inflation call, supported by inflation data above the Fed’s target while equities still performed strongly and bond prices declined with rising yields.

"“When you make the decision, the thing that most people don't do that they should really do is write down somewhere, I mean, even in your calendar,” she said. Write the thesis. Set a date. Come back and check honestly."

"Flynn Levy walked through a personal example that any parent saving for college will recognize. After the last election, she moved equity money into bonds in her kids' 529 accounts, expecting inflation to hurt stocks. She gave the trade a nine-month calendar reminder with specific criteria for revisiting it."

"“I was wrong. There was inflation, but that didn't affect the equity market, interestingly, in the end,” she admitted. The data backs both halves of that statement. Headline PCE inflation, the Fed's preferred gauge, ran at 3.5% year over year in March 2026, with core PCE at 3.2%."

"Equities did not care. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY | SPY Price Prediction) has returned 29.61% over the past year and 31.44% since November 1, 2024. Bonds, meanwhile, sat on rising yields. The 10-year Treasury yield is at 4.56% as of May 22, 2026, up 0.26 percentage points over the past month, which means bond prices declined for holders of duration."

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