25th anniversary of Black Monday

[Texas Proud]

I find it amazing how many people remember what it did to their portfolio...


I do remember the day as my best friend at the time was off that day... he kept calling me with updates on what was happening... IIRC, the big crash was very late in the day... he called and just stayed on the line giving me the ticker updates... (we could not look at anything online then)....

The only thing I remember is that my mom was not happy that at the end of the year she had a cap gain distribution from Fidelity Magellan which she had bought around March or April.... she could not believe she had to pay taxes when she had 'lost'... it took me a long time to explain why... and I think she never really got it.... but, she was happy she stayed invested... and still has money in there to this day....

 

[MBAustin]

I was a sales rep (clinical laboratory equipment) with a territory of east Texas and southwest Louisiana. I was in the Lake Charles area that day visiting customers and remember some of them talking about it. I remember also listening to the analysis on NPR in the evening as I was driving back to Houston and wondering if the financial world as we knew it was going to end. But I didn't pull any money out of my tiny mutual fund investments as my dad had beat long-term investing into my brain over the years. He was right.

... Our computers were HP 3000 mini-computers, which were necessary for trading and back-office functions like settlement. Just after I arrived the main system crashed with a hardware problem. I called HP support with whom we had a contract that provided for 4 hour response time, but no commitment on actual time to repair, naturally.... He arrived in time to fix the problem before the market opening. HP was a great company then and I was pretty glad we had chosen them. ...

Thanks for these memories, Khufu - my previous job before the sales position was as data processing supervisor (as they called it then) at a chemical plant where we used HP3000s to run the maintenance system. Great computers, and you are right that HP was a top notch company back then. Very sad to see what has happened to it over the years.

 

[73ss454]

At that time in my life I wasn't even paying attention to what was going on. I didn't wake up until much later.

 

[Bikerdude]

I find it amazing how many people remember what it did to their portfolio...

I can guarantee if it happens again in your lifetime, YOU will remember it.

 

[FreeAtLast]

We were in the closing for the house that I now live in and got the news when we came out of the meeting. I had previously sold my stocks to have a larger down payment.

 

[Texas Proud]

I can guarantee if it happens again in your lifetime, YOU will remember it.

No... because I was invested back then.... and I do not remember what happened to my portfolio except that it went down.... I did not make any changes in how much I was investing or where I was invested...

Don't get me wrong, I remember the day well... I can picture myself in my cube talking to my friend.... I can remember talking to my mom about it... but what happened to my portfolio.... no... (heck, I might not have even calculated what happened as it did not change my mind about anything)...


Now, this last one I will probably remember since it is a round number.... "I lost almost HALF my portfolio".... but in reality I did not.... it just sounds 'better' if you say so....

 

[rescueme]

I can guarantee if it happens again in your lifetime, YOU will remember it.

Amen!

For DW/me, it was a case that we were both 39 years of age, and had been in the market since '82. Remember, for us (who had a pension at the time - even though taken away at a later date), 1982 was the first year that we could contribute to our personal TIRA's. 401(k) programs did not come about until a few years later when our respective defined benefit plans - e.g. pensions, were eliminated.

Even though we only had a fraction of the equity value we had today, it was certainly a "teachable moment" in time.

I remembered the day well, since I was still going to night school for my BA (yes, at the age of 39, but that's another story).

The prof/instructor did take time at the beginning of the class to discuss the day's situation. Unlike today, there was no instant info, as far as the net provides today.

Being a couple of decades older than me (an old phart, but younger than me - today ), he just had the advice of don't worry about it. Markets go up, markets go down. Concentrate on the long term - as long as you are investing for the long term.

DW/me did nothing during that time. We also did nothing in 2000-02, nor 2008.

I know it is of little value to those that are much younger and have only been in the market for a decade (or less). However, you (and me) don't know what tomorrow will bring.

As for us? We learned a valuable lesson that period of time, and are "richer" (emotionally, and financially) for it.

Just our story...

 

[Lakewood90712]

By sheer dumb luck , just having bought first house in Feb. , I had nothing in the market . I suspect I would have been in a major panic if invested at the time. I was 5 years at megacorp , and a great number of the "Old Guys" (those over 30) were in the " Hair on fire " mode. I do remember the pre " Circuit Breaker " trade and settlement problems.

 

[Sue J]

DH had a small retirement account with his employer that lost some but we didn't panic over it. When he left that job a few years later it was just about back to it's earlier value.

OTOH, my sister's husband was on a business trip to Japan and was FRANTIC over the market drop. He had borrowed money to invest and had some major losses. This was the first time I heard the term "buy on margin". My sister says that she didn't know that he had borrowed the money, or maybe she just didn't pay attention. Whatever, it was quite a loss for them at a time when they didn't have money to spare.

 

[MichaelB]

I remember two things about that time. One, we had little savings in the bank but I had signed up for the employee stock purchase plan, get a 15% discount on up to 10% of salary. We enrolled up at my first raise to the 10% max. So we probably had 6 months or so of salary equivalent in company stock. The sudden drop was painful but in an abstract sort of way because it was not money we had any intention of spending anytime soon and we didn't look at it very often.

The second - the following saturday my son went to a scouts meeting, and the fathers were all standing around while the boys were doing their thing. One by one, each man discussed his thoughts on the market, but each one ended saying he had been lucky or prescient or something, had lots of money in the market but didn't lose any, saw it coming, or made money. Every single guy with the same story. So, when it was my turn I said something along the lines of "either I'm the dumbest guy here or the only honest one in the group, because the only stock we own went down a whole lot". Everyone laughed - then most walked away.

 

[ziggy29]

At that time in my life I wasn't even paying attention to what was going on. I didn't wake up until much later.

At the time, I had just turned 22, started my new professional job less than three months earlier and didn't have any investments yet. Plus, this job had a pension (later frozen). So in reality it really didn't hit me much. But it did, in retrospect, give me things to think about in terms of my investing decisions and asset allocation. It never really tested my risk tolerance like 2000-02 or 2007-09 did because I didn't have skin in the game.

 

[eytonxav]

At that time in my life I wasn't even paying attention to what was going on. I didn't wake up until much later.

Me too, wasn't on my radar back in those days.

 

[jebmke]

My wife (then fiance) was a portfolio manager (small cap stocks) at the time. I remember meeting her after work for dinner. We walked in the street for a block just to make doubly sure we didn't get hit by a falling investor.

 

[daystar]

I was only 8 years old back then, but I knew a little about the stock market because my grandma used to watch it all the time. I knew it was bad news, but didn't have the full understanding of how much money was lost by everyone that invested back then.

 

[freebird5825]

1987....hmmmmm

I was married for 3 years and living in the starter home I still occupy.

I was helping my husband pay back a $10K loan (downpayment on house) with interest from my FIL. It took us newlyweds 3 looong years to pay that loan back. I couldn't even afford to buy proper drapes for the house until 1988.

I was still w*rking for small time DoD contractors because there was still a federal hiring freeze in place. My salary was a joke but at least I had a j*b.

Stock market? Wasn't that something that people with a lot of money played with?

 

[kumquat]

My only investments then were in a company DC plan and a spousal RRSP (think IRA taxed eventually as your SO's income). I was under 40, making a fair bit of money and loving my job (I might have done it for [-]free [/-]minimum wage).

A couple of 'stock market geeks' kept stopping in my office and telling the 'sky is falling'. Didn't really listen. A day or so later, I met my MFS (synonym for 'advisor') since it was about time for the RRSP spend. He suggest avoiding stocks since 'shyte has happened (my words)'. Naive me says something like 'na, just buy more of the same[-] high-MER/bad performing[/-] equity funds'.

I still don't know how much I 'won or lost'.

 

[Ronstar]

My 401k had started a year earlier. I probably only had 3k in the market, but it made me nervous.

 

[SumDay]

I only had 3K in my 401(k) as well, as I'd just started there the year before. At that time 3K seemed like a fortune to me, and I was sad to lose half. By the next year all was well, and all these years later I'm still at the same megacorp, and thank heaven my 401(k) is well over 3k.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Like Brewer, I was in high school. Barely a blip I'm my horizon- I was way more worried about finding some booze for Friday night!

My parents did not have any stock market investments, only the small business my dad owned. Don't remember any sort of reaction on their part.

Y'all are a bunch of fossils! .

 

[dmpi]

I started investing in 1985. Lost about 30% (~12K) on black Monday. Boy, did it hurt! And the week that followed I was totally stressed out trying to figure out if I should sell. Only now I can look back see it in perspective.

 

[freebird5825]

Like Brewer, I was in high school. Barely a blip I'm my horizon- I was way more worried about finding some booze for Friday night!

My parents did not have any stock market investments, only the small business my dad owned. Don't remember any sort of reaction on their part.

Y'all are a bunch of fossils! .

Oh yeah ? Step a little closer and say that again...