One of the best nights I had this past Christmas was a little unexpected. My brother and I were killing some time before watching a World Junior Hockey game on the 30th. We were on the couch watching Rocky IV – the one where Rocky goes to Moscow for the bout on Christmas Day.

My son, Eric, entered the room early enough to see Ivan Drago kill Apollo Creed in the ring. He was hooked and we weren’t watching any hockey until Rocky Balboa avenged Apollo’s death. I was set up for my own demise when, the next morning, he told his mother he never went to bed until almost midnight and he started talking like Rocky.

A cool quote from the movie that always stuck with me is, “It ain’t how hard you hit… it’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. It's about how much you can take and keep moving forward!”

In 2022, the market was hit hard and fell to the mat. It was ugly, as the numbers in the table below make clear. One thing I know about the North American stock markets though, is that they have taken a lot of punches for over a hundred years, but they keep moving forward. As we move into 2023, and the later rounds of this pounding, we need to be mindful that eventually the bulls will start fighting back against the bears. When that happens, we’ll be ready to get in on that action.