Quote:
Originally Posted by masraum
You are absolutely correct, but despite the market doing what you say, many/most folks in the market don't do nearly as well as the market. Too many people are emotional about it. Many times I've seen/heard "oh no, the market just went way down, so I sold off a bunch of stock (after it had gone down 10% or whatever). Then they wait, and the market starts going back up and to be "sure" they wait some more. Then they are sure, so they buy back in after the market has gone up quite a bit compared to what it was when they sold. I'm like anyone in the market, I hate to see it go down (assuming I don't have a ton of money burning a hole in my pocket at the time, LOL). But when it does go down, I don't sell. I bide my time and then 6 months or a year or whatever, I'm back up to higher than it was before it went down and I haven't lost anything. But then I'm conservative and invested in low cost index funds. I'm sure that there are folks that have made more in the market than me, but I think I'm doing OK compared to most, and probably with less stress.
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Can't argue with any of that, and yes I've made my share of mistakes like you describe, especially when I first got into it.
I studied and learned so the mistakes are fewer than they used to be.
Some could argue that if I really felt that strongly abut the points in my post I would mortgage the heck out of my properties and sink all that money into equity investments.
But I haven't and won't.
A guy could get stinking rich doing that but he could also lose everything quickly.
Maybe if I were still in my twenties ....