LOL I have asked you where you got that 2% number before and you showed me a study about people that were invested in mutual funds. Clearly you are an intelligent person but to keep wagging that number around is just BS. The vast majority of people are like you. Not really interested in investing so they put their money into index and mutual funds. Nothing wrong with that if that is what you want to do but for the people who really put the effort into investing and read and learn it really isn’t that hard to figure it out. But I have to laugh when I see people like you putting so much effort into trying to scare people like me.
I guess I have a different outlook on life. I always tell everyone if they put in the effort and study you really can do anything. But then I have never limited myself by thinking there isn’t anything I can’t do.
Worked for me. When I got started I was going to be a stock picker. Figured out quick that low cost index funds were a better way to go for me. Still have the stocks, 6% of my portfolio. Selling them would be expensive in capital gains, but I do it slowly. Also a multi $M. Started out with pretty much nuthin’ but an engineering degree and no debt.
Sure I know guys that did it all with dividend paying stocks. They live off their dividends. I know people that did it with index funds, they got there eventually. I know people that did it with real estate, have more money than most people on this board. I did it with growth stocks. I can guarantee that the people investing in index funds never had a year where they were up over 100 percent.
LOL now tell Intercst that he should hold them. I think most people that hold index funds would never touch them. You have to have a little more fortitude to invest in them especially in a down turn.
That is how the city of Flint fed it’s residents contaminated water. The “emergency manager” (appointed by the JC Gov the state had at that time) had one priority: make sure the city did not go BK, so that the money interests that held Flint bonds were paid in full. So the city residents suffered. Even better, in spite of the water being useless/harmful, residents were required to pay their city water bills, so the money interests could be paid.
I’m quite sure it was absolutely terrible. In fact, it was so terrible that that particular time and only one other time in recorded stock investing history were the worst possible times to begin a retirement withdrawal, and is in fact what limits the prudent withdrawal rate to about 4%.
Now considering how awful and terrible that was (holding an index for 25 years before recovering), there is something way more awful and terrible. All the people who bought individual stocks, really strong growing stocks, like the Bank of the Unites States, or like Forshay, or Marmon, or thousands of other prosperous and growing companies. Their capital, their entire investment, went to zero, never to recover, not in 25 years, not in 50 years, not ever.
But what if you had put the 10,000 into Cisco? or JDS Uniphase? Or AOL? All darlings and showing great growth at the time. The Apple and Microsoft argument is a bad argument for two reasons:
You literally have to choose one or two (or 5) great stocks (great over the 30 years) out of thousands of stocks. Or even if you limit to good growth, out of hundreds of stocks.
If everyone suddenly decides on those few great stocks, the price goes up RIGHT AWAY and then it doesn’t provide anywhere near as good returns for subsequent investors. Not everyone can be in the few top stocks, it is literally arithmetically impossible.
In the 60s/70s we had the “nifty 50”. Strongest and best stocks that “everyone” wanted. Well, “everyone” bought, and the prices rose, more people bought, and in the end those later investors did NOT prosper overall. Certainly not for 30 years!
I consistently underperformed the market for about 30 years with overpriced mutual funds and bad stock picks. Turns out you can save enough for retirement anyway as long as you consistently live below your means and save and invest at least 15% of your income.
Admittedly getting away from overpriced funds and bad stock picks over the last 15 years with low cost index funds and ETFs has also helped.
That would only happen to people who hold and never sell. That is why I have rules in place to sell stocks that are in a down turn. You can always buy them back when they start going back up if they do. The idea isn’t to hold a stock through thick and thin but to grow your portfolio.
You mean like @intercst did? That is what I have been talking about Mark. Csco still hasn’t come back. If you would have sold it on 4/12/2000 when it broke through the 50sma you would have saved yourself a lot of heart ache. It was a decisive break and would have been a big warning.
Now you would have been probably really excited about Csco because it made you a lot of money so on 4/27/2000 you probably would have gone back in with a 1/4 or 1/2 position but when it went back below the 50sma you would have been out. Then you would have noticed all the chop as it went up and down and stayed in cash then on 9/11/2000 when it dropped below the 200sma you would have not been looking at it anymore.
If you look at 1980 it was not much of a recession time wise. The prior recessions during the demand side part of the cycle were shallower than the supply side recessions.
Yes we will have a recession, could have declared one this year almost, but a shallow recession. The current lay off headlines are in tech. The workforces are massive and these layoffs are good sized but not the soup of bankrupt companies.
I am following my system and it seems to work better than your crystal ball. I don’t mind you having an opinion that we are going to have a recession every year but it is worth exactly what I pay you for it.
LOL I think you are the emotional one Leap spouting your nonsense. I have never seen someone so intent on getting everything wrong.
I was making money just like I am now. But that was 3 years ago Leap, not two. It’s a shame to have been out of the market for 3 years. If that is your long game, you need to find another game.
WendyBG