Poll - What are Your Paper Losses?

[Culture]

How much of your portfolio have you lost since your personal high?

 

[NW-Bound]

Already voted, but perhaps the number is more significantly expressed in percentage.

 

[REWahoo]

How much of your portfolio have you lost since your personal high?

You mean so far, right?

 

[NW-Bound]

Take our recent poll about one's portfolio size (it was in July, I think). That's how much we could lose! Happy Halloween!



PS. Do I hear the cries of "Uncle!" ?

Sorry for the bad joke, but if we also lose our sense of humor, then what do we have left?

The above was said by a goon in "MadMax", I think!

 

[Culture]

Already voted, but perhaps the number is more significantly expressed in percentage.

True, unless you want to be able to say, "Honey, look it is not so bad. Someone else lost more than we did" .

Actual dollar figures are scarier than percentages, and I am interested in the wreckage. it is one thing to say i have lost 25% (which is what I have lost). It is totally another to say i have lost $1,000 or $1,000,000, both of which could be that 25%.

 

[Texarkandy]

Why does this poll assume everyone has had a loss?

 

[Culture]

Why does this poll assume everyone has had a loss?

Good point. I should have included a no-loss option.

 

[GLM]

Strange how I like this poll- misery does love company.

 

[Culture]

Strange how I like this poll- misery does love company.

All joking aside, that was kind of the idea here. it is nice to see that it was not only me.

 

[Culture]

Why does this poll assume everyone has had a loss?

On reflection, the poll is technically correct as written. If you have made money over the past month, you "loss" is zero.

However, I agree I should have include an "I made money option."

 

[W2R]

I should have include an "I made money option."

I put in another category of "I made money". Sounds like that's ok with you.

 

[Purron]

My answer included both real estate and stock losses since DH and I have two properties that have both gone down in value quite a bit.

 

[Texarkandy]

How about a category of:
"I made a little money, but not enough to cover inflation, so technically still a loss"

OK - I voted 0 to 50k on first seeing the poll for lack of a better option, but wish to change my vote now that we have another option - can I do that? Or should I just vote twice in the new category? Will I have to register again under a different username? Should we call ACORN? I'm so confused

 

[freebird5825]

How much of your portfolio have you lost since your personal high?

my personal high was when i FIREd in April 07.
but i don't have a real portfolio value from that time.
i'm just about 25% down YTD. eeeeeeeek!

 

[Helena]

No losses - I made money.

I cashed out of stocks and RE before I retired summer 2007.

Cashed out and debt free... as I have posted here many times
in the past - the best place to be during deflation.

 

[Spanky]

Why does this poll assume everyone has had a loss?

That would be a different poll - what's your return since Oct 07 or this year?

 

[FIRE'd@51]

Actually, my personal high was in 2000.

 

[UncleHoney]

Glad there is an "I made money" category now. And I guess you can classify my gains as "paper" too. Especially the paper with pictures of George, Abe, Alex, Andy, US Grant and Ben Franklin.

The CD's are slow but steady and I keep adding to my portrait collection every month.

 

[NW-Bound]

Actual dollar figures are scarier than percentages, and I am interested in the wreckage. it is one thing to say i have lost 25% (which is what I have lost). It is totally another to say i have lost $1,000 or $1,000,000, both of which could be that 25%.

OK. How about this to alleviate your pain?

Chairman of Bear Stearns James Cayne had a stake worth more than $1 billion on paper in 2007. In March 2008, he had sold all of his shares in this troubled investment bank for just $61 million.

Actual dollar figure: $1B. Percentage: 95%. Do we all feel better now??

Gee, that $61M is probably 1 or 2 year expenses for this "poor" guy.

Actually, I felt a bit sorry for him. Being Chairman of the board, he probably did not know what his CEO and CFO were doing. Actually, his CEO and CFO probably did not know either.

Diversify, diversify, baby....

 

[NW-Bound]

By the way, look over the entire world. Many foreign stock indices went down more than S&P 500 or the DOW. There's misery all over the world. So, are we all poorer? Probably not, if we do not compare to the few who have gone 100% to cash.

There! I hope I make everybody happier. We still own the same companies as we did last year, the same house we did. Just the price tag we put on them got marked down. Again, do not compare yourself to the few who are 100% in cash. We are in this together.

 

[FIREd]

Wow, so far, as a community, we've lost between $13.5M and $23M+... And only 49 people have reported their losses so far!

 

[Helena]

By the way, look over the entire world. Many foreign stock indices went down more than S&P 500 or the DOW. There's misery all over the world. So, are we all poorer? Probably not, if we do not compare to the few who have gone 100% to cash.

There! I hope I make everybody happier. We still own the same companies as we did last year, the same house we did. Just the price tag we put on them got marked down. Again, do not compare yourself to the few who are 100% in cash. We are in this together.

There are more in 100% cash than you realize.

Me included.

 

[Helena]

Glad there is an "I made money" category now. And I guess you can classify my gains as "paper" too. Especially the paper with pictures of George, Abe, Alex, Andy, US Grant and Ben Franklin.

The CD's are slow but steady and I keep adding to my portrait collection every month.

Ditto

And, the value of those picture papers has increased internationally as well.


~

 

[REWahoo]

There are more in 100% cash than you realize.

Me included.

So you've told us...and told us...and told us.

 

[NW-Bound]

Either absolute dollars or percentage, there are obviously people in this forum who have lost more than me. Why is my wife still nagging at me? How do I tell her if it weren't for the market, frugal as we have been, we could never have saved enough for this money that we still have. The market gives, and the market takes, well still less than it gives. Helleluya, the glass is still half full (but I do not dare drink it!).

I have been telling her that what we "lost" is "lost". The question is how to keep what we still have, AND manage to grow it from here. Got too! Still got 10 years until early SS. Can't quit the game yet!

PS. To people in 100% cash. I may envy you now. And I do not wish you ill luck. However, investment is a continuing process. Are we ever at the end of the race? When does the fat lady sing, if not over our casket? Until then, no one knows. Gosh, this uncertainty is what makes life exciting!