Was there a 2007,2008,2009 YTD performance thread?

[NW-Bound]

Looking back I am amazed that life went as normal .Despite losing 40% I still traveled in fact I took two big trips in 2009 & 2010 . I do a straight 4% of my stash and I really did not feel pinched . My lower balance got to be the new reality and I just adjusted . I did have a pension and ss to help my sanity .My 4% was just icing on the cake .

People adapt better than they would think. Look at the hardship people endure in wars, famine, calamities. People survive the World Wars, the Great Depression, earthquakes, tsunami, Katrina, etc... What we personally went through in the Great Recession was just mental, and nothing to complain about really, other than about these g*d***** bankers.

And right now, Venezuelans are suffering (and the world cannot help nor care much). Look at these poor dogs in Caracas. People do not fare much better.

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

People adapt better than they would think. Look at the hardship people endure in wars, famine, calamities. People survive the World Wars, the Great Depression, earthquakes, tsunami, Katrina, etc... What we personally went through in the Great Recession was just mental, and nothing to complain about really, other than about these g*d***** bankers.

And right now, Venezuelans are suffering (and the world cannot help nor care much). Look at these poor dogs in Caracas. People do not fare much better.

I never liked Hugo, Im sure if he met me, the feelings would have been mutual.

 

[Fedup]

Forget about dogs, the people in Venezuela can't afford to eat. I've read they go to Trinidad nearby for food. Even a doctor can't practice medicine.

 

[Moemg]

Did you retire yet? We weren't.

I retired Jan. 20th 2008 . Talk about bad timing !

 

[Moemg]

Moemg >>> so from those years (2008) did you recover and did you stay the course and didn't sell?

I stayed the course . I was heavy in stocks so I really took a beating plus I had just retired . I did sell $10,000 at the low but otherwise I just hung in there . By 2013 my portfolio was back to my all time high even with taking 4% most years and it has soared since then.I did learn to keep a few years in cash in case this happened again.

 

[jebmke]

I retired Jan. 20th 2008 . Talk about bad timing !

December, 2007 was my last month.

I had moved my portfolio gradually to a level where I knew I would re-balance. As a result, I was back to pre-crash level by 2010 I think (working from ever decreasing memory here). Failure to re-balance usually guarantees a long road back.

 

[Andre1969]

I don't have my records in front of me at the moment, but I think I was up around 15% in 2007, down around 41% in 2008, and up around 40% in 2009.

I do remember hitting my personal rock bottom around Thanksgiving, 2008, and at that point I was actually down by slightly more than half. But the market had a quick bounce-back, and by the end of December I was up around 20% from that Thanksgiving low. The official bottom of the market was March 9, 2009. I seem to recall that January was a good month, adding to December '08's gains, but then February started to tank and then it hit the bottom in March.

I think my net worth hit a new record by Thanksgiving 2009, but that included additional investments, so I really wasn't "made whole" again from the recession until sometime in early 2010.

 

[NW-Bound]

Come to think of it, it has been 9 years since we experienced those scary market movements. How time flies!

In another 10 years, how many of us will still be posting or reading this forum?

Life is so short one cannot spend too much time worrying about money, particularly for those of us who are geezers, or of pre-geezer age. Unless one is broke, there are other more important things to worry about.

 

[street]

I stayed the course . I was heavy in stocks so I really took a beating plus I had just retired . I did sell $10,000 at the low but otherwise I just hung in there . By 2013 my portfolio was back to my all time high even with taking 4% most years and it has soared since then.I did learn to keep a few years in cash in case this happened again.

Thanks and if a person can hold on and weather the storm in time a person should be back where they were at.

 

[Moemg]

Life is so short one cannot spend too much time worrying about money, particularly for those of us who are geezers, or of pre-geezer age. Unless one is broke, there are other more important things to worry about.

Absolutely ,It was an eye opening period but does not even come close to the awful things life can hand you.

 

[NW-Bound]

There is a woman RV'er blog that I ran across, but did not follow. Yesterday, read it again, and found that she was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer earlier this year. How awful! How did that happen?

So, I went back to the earlier entries, and saw that she discovered that she had uterine cancer in mid 2015, but it was only Stage 1. After she had a hysterectomy and the lymph nodes came out clear, her oncologist said her prognosis was excellent, particularly after she went through some radiation treatment to be safe. Her chance should be 99%.

Then, just 1-1/2 years after that, they found that the cancer has metastasized to her spine, and grew wrapping around her vertebrae. She is still fighting it.

She retired early in 2013 at the age of 51. She thought she would have at least 20 years of good health to enjoy traveling. She never had any health issue, was never hospitalized before.