Stop Saying Gen Z Has Never Seen a Bear Market.

It isn’t up for debate.

I can’t tell you how many people think that our generation hasn’t experienced a meaningful drawdown in the market. They base this solely on a (hopefully) one-off event, 2008.

In fairness, we didn’t have assets then. We didn’t even really grasp the extent to which people were being financially burdened back then.

But this idea that our generation has yet to experience a meaningful drawdown in the market is absolute garbage.

Please note that I do take it personally when older generations belittle our market experience. (Usually, it is because they are telling me personally that I haven’t experienced these things with an undertone of young advisors being unfit to do their job... First things first, if someone thinks our job is to focus only on markets, they don’t understand what we do).

So, let me make the argument that our generation has experienced significant market drawdowns.

First off, COVID. The COVID crash occurred when I was a junior in college. I worked throughout my entire college career. I had been investing since my freshman year. I remember this vividly. I remember exchanging texts with my dad about how quickly the market was moving.

The COVID sell-off was scary. Mainly because of how violent the sell-off was.

We hit 4 circuit breakers during the COVID sell-off in March of 2020. A circuit breaker kicks in when the S&P 500 falls 7% in one day. The market essentially shuts off for 15-minutes.

Do you know how many circuit breakers occurred during the GFC market crash? Try 0.

But hey, we don’t know anything about volatile markets and scary drawdowns… right? We only experienced one of the quickest 33% losses for the market in history.

We also experienced 2022. By definition this was a bear market and it was one of the worst years in the history of the bond market.

Throw in some flash sell-offs like the yen carry trade unwind of 2024, the DeepSeek event in early 2025, the Tariff Tantrum of April ‘25, and I’d make the argument that we’ve seen more than most give us credit for.

I’m sorry but I just don’t bite down on the idea that Gen Z hasn’t experienced a bear market. Have we not experienced a Dot-Com bubble bursting or a 2008 financial crisis, sure.

But those are exceptional events. They are not considered the norm.

One more idea. Gen Z invests heavily in cryptocurrency. They have been exposed to this asset class and seem to be adopters of the assets.

Crypto has experienced multiple 50% drawdowns over the last 8 years with 2022’s bear market bringing Bitcoin down over 70% from the high.

Gen Z lived this. They watched it. It was a very real drawdown.

While we might not have had the amount of assets at risk as older generations had during ‘08, we still experienced these drawdowns.

I hope there is never another 2008 event. But if there is, I’m confident in Gen Z’s ability to handle the drawdown.

We know more about investing than any other generation did at our ages and tons of information is at our disposal. We’re no strangers to market drawdowns and volatility and we have more market experience than most credit us.

This is for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal or investment advice or a recommendation of any particular security or strategy. The investment strategy and themes discussed herein may be unsuitable for investors depending on their specific investment objectives and financial situation. Opinions expressed in this commentary reflect subjective judgments of the author based on conditions at the time of publication and are subject to change without notice. Past performance is not indicative of future results.