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Candidate for "Dumbest Guy in the World"


sputnik

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Sometime in the future...you will see these kinds of stories about folks who put money into the stock market.

Even after repeated losses.....money keeps going in.

Americans are dreamers.

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Sometime in the future...you will see these kinds of stories about folks who put money into the stock market.

Even after repeated losses.....money keeps going in.

Americans are dreamers.

Keen insight.

I had a friend here at work who recently retired, I've worked with him since the late 70's. At any rate, he recently called me about a speaker related issue, and when I asked how he like being retired he told me he will probably have to go back to work at some point -- he lost almost $90,000 of his retirement in this latest Wall Street tumble.

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90,000 is a relative number. The percentage of loss is what is important. Most americans lost around 30% of their portfolios - with some as much as 50-70%. If your friend lost 90,000 and it represented a 100K portfolio then he lost 90 percent and that is devastating. If he had a million dollar portfolio, then the 90 is less than 10% and he made out pretty darn good. Anyone who was under 20% should feel like they dodged a bullet. Anyone who lost over 40% was probably overexposed and a bit greedy on thier choices. The Stock market took nearly 25 years to recover after the Great Depression. Many of todays investors can't wait that long as they are too close to retirement. Warren Buffet said in one interview that a 5% return is all anyone should expect over the long haul. That lends itself to a pretty conservative portfolio. But some are gamblers and some beat the odds. I've never been that lucky.

I had one pretty high risk investment that I took a bath on. I lost nearly 95% in that one investment. Fortunately it was only a portion of a more conservative larger portfolio, which netted a 17% loss last year. My house on the other hand seems to have lost all equity and would be a problem to sell in my area at the moment. Not a good year - buts lots are much worse off than I - and at least I am still working - for now.

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