I know you have accounted for your overall activity in 08/09 within your knowledge base:- I got killed in 2008 like everyone else. Probably worse than someone who was in defensive stocks. It was my first negative year after 19 positive years in a row. I stayed 100% in stocks, selling anything which hadn’t gone down much to buy more of the ones that were down the most.
Finally, I was down so much that even I got scared and started to think of selling out and going into cash. All the talking heads were saying, “Sell! Sell! Sell! Get out! Get 100% in cash!”
I said to my wife, “If everyone is shouting ‘Sell!’ and even I am scared enough to be thinking about selling, there’s no one else left to sell… This must be the bottom.” And it was (Nov 2008).
In 2008, in the big meltdown, I dropped 62.5%, which was pretty terrifying. In 2009 I was up 110.7%. The way percentages work though, after dropping 62.5%, gaining even 110.7% doesn’t get you back to where you started, but I sure felt better.
… but I was wondering if there is any more detail and possible reflection you could add as/when we face the next correction/crash.
Specifically…
When did you start selling any of your portfolio and would you have done this earlier or do this earlier next time?
Would relative price descent be the only selling/buying/reallocation measure or would you consider other metrics? (You subsequently discovered the 1YPEG plus have become more invested in pre-earnings stock etc).
I know you have accounted for your overall activity in 2008 within your knowledgebase…but when did you start selling any of your portfolio and would you have done this earlier or do this earlier next time?
Hi Ant, I’m just answering from memory, but I believe I didn’t sell any of my portfolio. I probably sold things which I had least confidence in and put the money in high confidence stocks that had also gone down by large amounts. But I stayed 100% invested.
That’s what I had done in the 2000 internet bubble pop. I was lucky enough to sell out of my internet stocks in Jan or Feb of 2000, and put the money in non-internet stocks.
By the way, I don’t think of 2008 as just a correction or Bear Market. It was the closest thing to the 1929 Crash that we had seen in 80 years. The whole banking system was crashing. World-wide. I don’t think you should plan in terms of any next correction as being on that scale.
Sorry to take this somewhat off-topic, but I’m mentioning a bubble that looks pretty obvious to me, to compare notes to see if others agree. (Bubble-spotting is useful in investing, of course.)
It looks like The Next Big Bubble is developing in crypto-currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. They’ve recently grown tremendously in dollar price in a short time. The total market in all of them is somewhat over $100 billion at current valuations.
With some of the newer currencies, there may be a way to make money cheaply by building a computer to do “mining,” which creates new coins. That would have been the way to make a fortune at low risk in the early days of Bitcoin. These days, you’d need a very high-end, specialized computer because the coins get harder to mine as more of them come into existence. There’s a limit on the total number of Bitcoins, and I assume also on the other currencies.
I wonder if a $100 or less video card or two would do the trick with some of these currencies.
Hi Ant, I’m just answering from memory, but I believe I didn’t sell any of my portfolio. I probably sold things which I had least confidence in and put the money in high confidence stocks that had also gone down by large amounts. But I stayed 100% invested.
Hi Saul,
If you do not mind, I have a follow-up question. Was this situation any different from your normal practice? Because to me, it seems that you generally adjust your portfolio by selling stocks in which you have low confidence and reinvest the money in higher confidence stocks. Did the size of the decline in your high confidence stocks play a role, i.e., you were trying to capitalize on a perceived greater opportunity?
Hi EdGrey,
Off topic it is, but I’ll give you my take on cryptocurrencies. Not terribly different than gold or rare stones (and I’ll even throw in a lot of collectables); none of them possess any intrinsic value. None of them have any productive capacity. Therefore, it’s pure speculation, not investing.
Go for it if you have the temperament for it, just be cognizant of what you are really putting your money into.