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      04-01-2014, 06:47 PM   #2180
NemesisX
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Drives: '19 Infiniti Q60S
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 128Convertibleguy View Post
And before that I missed two crashes. The last of which wiped out 50% of the value in the market in less than a year.

The Dow gained about 42% in the last 15 years. A little over 2.5%/year computed simply, a little under 2.5% compounded. My inflation indexed bonds did better.

I'll concede I'm risk averse, but I have a reason. The retired guy had enough to buy the BMW 1-series. If I invested now maybe I could have a new M. Or I could be driving a beat up Toyota Corolla. I'll take the 128.

OTOH, I did well in the market before I got out. The previous 15 years were strong, relatively uninterrupted growth. If I was a young man today, I'd probably be there now.
It's understandable. My dad lived through 2 stock market crashes (2000 and 2008). He rode the bull till about mid 1700 for S&P500 and now he's sitting on a boatload of cash waiting for the market to crash again. He did enter the workforce at the heels of "black monday" (1987) so he started investing at a great time.

He's also kind of close to retirement age (57). The only good thing is that his liquid net worth is high enough such that a conservative 2% withdrawal would cover his annual expenses with a cushion of about 1.5x to 2x not including social security or pension so he can afford to be conservative.

I'll probably play it the same way. I'll play the market long sticking mostly to low or no load index funds but I might be a bit more risk averse when I hit my 50s.
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