Breaking even is hard to do

Checking my portfolio after reading the Canadian market was up 60% since March last year, I was disappointed to see that I was just barely above the original investment values before the crash.

That didn't seem fair as the crash of 2008-2009 was widely reported as knocking values down by only 40%. I was expecting to be up by more than that.

Unfortunately, it's a lesson in the inconvenient truth of basic arithmetic. If your original investment is down by 40%, then it has to come back by 67% to return to break even. Do the math.

I agree it doesn't seem fair, but that's how it works. Breaking even is hard to do.