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Originally Posted by manaboutown
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Yessiree!
Several years ago, I was talking with a financial advisory firm, and I specified that I wanted to interview the oldest advisor there. I wanted to talk with someone who had actually seen bad markets, the 1980s inflation, and bubbles that popped. (I did not hire the advisor, even though I liked him. I might go back there someday, but he is probably retired by now.)
The wild-eyed, shouting, money-media loves to call things crashes that are nothing more than blips, and they use untrue phrases like historically high inflation.
We boomers and beyond, who have been interested in the stock market and real estate for decades, including the last part of the last century, know that kind of reporting is the media’s hyperbole. Boomers who had double-digit mortgages in the 80s know what historically high inflation really looks like. (CDs were paying double-digits, too.)
I got caught in the dot.com bubble in the 90s because I thought it was the latest, greatest, unstoppable thing ever and could not possibly lose. I was guilty of hubris. Then came the big
POP! I view those losses as the cost of an education. Fortunately, I had not bet the farm on dot.com, only the butter and egg money. But I have never forgotten how arrogant and stupid I was for that brief and shining moment of insane returns on dot.com funds.
I have never owned commercial property, but I clearly remember people talking about how those who did were set for life, even the small-scale commercial property owners. While there are, of course, a lot of commercial properties that are successful, the commercial landscape does not look like it once did. Office buildings in my home city have a lot of “Space Available” or “For Sale ” signs out front. Lots of empty mall space, too. There is also is a wide difference in the appearance and occupancy of small strip malls. Some that appear to be well-maintained and probably reasonable with their small business tenants seem to be doing OK. But the world of commercial property that we see while driving around is not what it once was. Internet shopping has pounded bricks-and-mortar. There are some buildings being converted to condos which requires a big investment but looks like a good idea. The rest just sit around looking neglected and desperate.
Index funds get more and more attention now, even though they have been around for a very long time. I do not pretend to be a sophisticated investor, but although I have an S&P, maybe two, I threw in some sector funds, like utilities, and other types, like Contrafund. That was because a lot of funds, in general, look to me like they end up so heavily weighted with the Magnificent Seven. Seems like so many funds are downright redundant now.
I was looking at a few funds recently and Nvidia was usually the top holding, followed by the the other tech biggies for the top ten holdings — and the top ten made up what I thought was an overly large percentage. It’s not that I think tech is a bubble, but isn’t there always something new ready to knock certain tech stocks off their pedestals?
Meanwhile, I guess I will just continue to manage the Boomerfund, keeping things simple, some individual stocks, a few funds, some cash, keeping an eye on longtime holdings, and buying and selling what I want to when I want to. It keeps me amused, I guess.
Boomer