veremchuka
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Friday, 10/19, is the 25th anniversary of Black Monday October 19th, 1987. The DJIA dropped almost 23% on that day which I believe is the worst one day drop ever. No one knew what they were buying or selling at because the "tape" was so backed up and it took several hours to settle accounts. They were not even certain they could reopen the next morning, I need to rewatch that for the details but it was very touch and go at 4 or 6 am on 10/20!
I had just started the job I retired from 10 months earlier. While I was good at saving money even back then I wasn't investing much. Back then my company required you to be employed for a year before you could invest in the 401k, totally stupid but that's how it was. So I had very little in the market, just some from a prior 401k. There were a couple of guys freaking out on the van we commuted on and they were really upset as they were older and had a lot in the markets especially individual stocks. My comment was markets go up, markets go down! I really did say that which is a quote of Ronald Reagan but I don't know if I knew that back then.
So in a few months after I retired it was the 20th anniversary. CNBC ran a 1 hour special about it and I was very interested in learning about it so I taped it. Unfortunately I did not watch it for a while and failed to act! As a new retiree I should have grasped the difference between working and plowing money into equity mutual funds and being retired. Today I realize I should have been more conservative when the bottom started to fall out of things but I was so sold on buy and hold I didn't and I didn't rebalance. I've almost recovered but it's taken 5 years. Fortunately this didn't hurt me other than seeing a good sized nest egg evaporate into a small one.
Any remembrances from that date?
I had just started the job I retired from 10 months earlier. While I was good at saving money even back then I wasn't investing much. Back then my company required you to be employed for a year before you could invest in the 401k, totally stupid but that's how it was. So I had very little in the market, just some from a prior 401k. There were a couple of guys freaking out on the van we commuted on and they were really upset as they were older and had a lot in the markets especially individual stocks. My comment was markets go up, markets go down! I really did say that which is a quote of Ronald Reagan but I don't know if I knew that back then.
So in a few months after I retired it was the 20th anniversary. CNBC ran a 1 hour special about it and I was very interested in learning about it so I taped it. Unfortunately I did not watch it for a while and failed to act! As a new retiree I should have grasped the difference between working and plowing money into equity mutual funds and being retired. Today I realize I should have been more conservative when the bottom started to fall out of things but I was so sold on buy and hold I didn't and I didn't rebalance. I've almost recovered but it's taken 5 years. Fortunately this didn't hurt me other than seeing a good sized nest egg evaporate into a small one.
Any remembrances from that date?