Quote:
Originally Posted by redefined
My thing is, right now with the market, it seems to be at a high point again, like before it crashed 6 years ago. Setting overall records etc. Scares me that it's about time for it to dip and dip big. Probably soon as I get in we'll have a 2008 kerrr-splat!  |
I'm sorry --- I hear that same thing every day. Now.... if you've read this thread at all ---- you'd see that I constantly ask that people go look at charts. The reason for that - is that they will be ASSURED that the market WILL in fact dip.... and the shorter the time frame -- those dips will be more obvious... now -- stretch that chart out and those ups and downs start to calm down... and the most important thing you'll see is the chart lower on the left and higher on the right.
I want you to personally go choose just about ANY stock and pull up it's chart PRE 2008 ---- go back to 1999 or 2000 or whenever -- just as long as it's before 2008... and have it stretch to current. Tell me what you see.
The only losers in 2008 (same with housing by the way) are the people that SOLD ---- everyone else is doing just fine.
If you were invested in Dividend paying stocks during that low period --- those dividends were buying MORE shares at lower prices -- those shares paid dividends which bought more shares and so on -- AND their price per share appreciated. This is why I repeatedly say "LONGER TERM" not tomorrow - not next week - not this month... and maybe we suck for a year or two. But if you look at HISTORY (what else can we rely on - we don't have crystal balls) - that will show you that over time - you'll be fine.
If you understand AVERAGES --- the stock market is no different than most everything else in the world... sometimes it goes up - and sometimes it goes down -- but over time it AVERAGES "X". Housing's average increase is about 4% per year. It went nuts for a couple years... then went down for a couple years --- my guess is - when you look back - that "average" number stays just about the same...
The other thing that I have repeated repeatedly is to AVERAGE IN --- I have never said someone should go take 100K and put it all in tomorrow morning. Most people save up -- put some to work -- save some more - put some to work and so on. If they do that -- which is what's NORMAL -- they will buy more shares when prices are lower (during your big kerrsplat!) and they'll buy fewer shares when prices are at higher prices... they begin to average at a lower cost even if you managed to buy your first few batches at the peak of every year. It's okay. It's INVESTING. It's long term thinking 5 - 10 - 20 - 30 years. You're never going to have anything if you're always waiting for the lowest price of the century. You'd never buy a house - you'd never buy a car - you'd never buy clothes... if you were always worried that they might go on sale the day after you bought.
By the way --- I've guaranteed everyone, many times, that the day they buy - the market WILL go down. You'd see that by reading the thread. I will guarantee the day you buy it will be lower at some point than what you paid. Get over it.
Since this thread started - there have been plenty of guys here that started to invest -- and I'll bet you every one of them has seen PAPER losses in their account at some point.... The happy ones - are the ones that stayed the course.
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