Black Monday 1987

[racy]

I went to a broker and bought 1 share of Berkshire Hathaway. As I recall, about $3200.

[Jeffman52]

I was 26 and had started my first megacorp position. That year I got into my 401K (after learning what those were). The megacorp I was with had rocking stocks so I sunk 95% of everything into that. A few years go by and man, A few splits have gone by and my 401K is rocking. My (relatively small) 401K investments had turned into over 100K.

Then one morning, I logged in to see how it was going and I noted a lock on my account. You couldn't change anything on the account. And then the big lesson on having so much in your employers stock in investments. They had been reporting inaccurate financials in order to artificially inflate their stock prices. Overnight, my 100+K dollars turned into about 9K. It never recovered. I kept those shares for a number of years and finally moved it to something that was actually increasing its value. A decade or so later they got bought out by one of the competitors.

[sengsational]

I had worked for a megacorp, gone back to grad school, and just started work again when this event occurred.

The company offered, and I participated in an investment plan, but I was in the conservative option, so lost nothing.

If I knew what I know now, I would have been in 100% equities and "lost my shirt" only to get two shirts a year later.