And boring, old-fashioned dividend investors slept right through it.

I assume Buffett had been buying, buying, buying throughout that time and reinvesting dividends from those steady, old workhorses he was holding.

(Yes. I know that Berkshire's dividends are reinvested not paid out to investors.)

Boomer

My first purchase was many decades ago , no internet, talked to as many people who seemed and probably did know more than me (easy to do even today!) ended up buying TRW, I did OK,, broker talked me out of Berkshire Hathaway,, oh well

Since November 2020 the Dow is up 10,000 and the S&P 1000. May be time to take some profits and see how 2022 is going. Remember. You don't make money until you sell.

and you don't pay taxes on the gain until you sell!

Up or down I will accept either, totally without panic if it becomes a down year. We have already won the game.

Just call me Iron Belly

I've been a person who buys good stuff and leaves it alone, never rebalance just to rebalance, sold because of other issues. Never sold a share during the 2007/2008 depression, never sold a share during 2020 because you knew it will be a "v" shaped recovery. Now, I'm thinking of selling almost everything because of the environment. Scares of people wanting to tax unrealized gains even in your IRA accounts. Now I think, I don't need to make another dime in the market to live comfortably so why take a big chance.

The best market prediction I recall is the old ad featuring Eliot Janeway...

Announcer: Mr Janeway, is the market headed up or down?

Janeway: Yes, but not right away.

At 72 I have implemented a disinvesting plan that started three years ago. Expect to totally be out of the market in 10 years. Mix moved to 1.0 or lower Beta.

Peter Lynch's philosophy.
 

Peter Lynch's always said buy stocks that you know from your daily life. He put Fidelity investments on the map with his stellar performance for Magellan fund. The other great investor was Bob Farrell of Merrill Lynch.

Maybe it’s just me but I feel 2022 has the potential for being a very bad year in the market. There is no doubt the Fed is going to start raising interest rates. You have Russia sitting on the border of the Ukraine waiting to invade. There is a possibility that China will invade Taiwan after the Winter Olympics, and just a lot of unrest in the world. If gas prices continue to rise everything you continue to go up in price and who knows we’re Covid is heading. So to me there is two much uncertainty in the world to be aggressive in the markets. Really don’t know what to do about investments.

You can’t predict the market but my gut feeling is that it’s different today than the past. I’m a vanguard fan and invest in mostly index funds the last 20 years. I’ve been selling off my taxable accounts for the last few years to keep my bucket system in tact in good times and bad. Normally I live off dividends and don’t have to sell any shares when the market is bad.
If you read last months AARP newsletter, they interviewed Jim Cramer who has always been bullish on stocks. He sold off more than half his portfolio for cash and what’s left is in index funds. This is what I wanted to do this past year and in this climate, it will happen this coming qtr

Thank you for that link, dewilson58. I read Charlie Munger’s part first and will get to the rest later.

Charlie agrees with me. This is the craziest time we have seen since the dotcom era. . .

I still have flashbacks of my young arrogance in those days. I thought those dotcom stocks were amazing. One of my funds returned 100% very quickly. Did I get out? Oh, nooooo. I just kept on bubble-dancing. Duh. It is true what they say about experience being the best teacher.

(At least I had not bet the farm. Only the butter and egg money.)

All the buzz about cryptocurrency has that dotcom feel for me. Charlie does not like it either. I guess it is that unreal feel that makes some of us — who have seen a lot of markets — uninterested in crypto.

Meanwhile, I think PG is hitting its all-time high today. I keep wondering why PG is not splitting. PG, up or down, longtime holders probably are not going anywhere because the check really has been in the mail, every quarter, since PG went public in 1890 — and the dividend has been increased for 65 consecutive years. Of course, there are far more exciting stocks when it comes to growth. But the psychology of a split could let new dividend investors tiptoe in.

Boomer Whipple

Never bet more than you can afford to lose.

One expert predicts down at some point and then a HUGE rise like in the S+P to 6,000. Pretty bold prediction!