If you had bought $1000.00 worth of Nortel stock one year ago, it would
now be worth $49.00.
With Enron, you would have $16.50 of the original $1,000.00.
With WorldCom, you would have less than $5.00 left.
If you’d bought $1,000.00 worth of Budweiser (the beer, not the stock) 1 year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the 10 cent deposit, you would have $214.00.
Based on the above, my current investment advice is to drink heavily
and recycle.
You’re supposed to finish saying something like that with a very loud belch. Newbie.
:)
You know what they say, “buy low, sell high.” :P
That usually is good advice, but it has been going more like, “buy low, keeps going lower” :?
I am hopeful for an eventual upturn but I modified my future 401K investment options to a more conservative allocation - all stock funds to a mix of stock/bond/stable income funds.
-DavidCPA
One thing you homeowners may want to consider is refinancing. My wife and I just went in yesterday and began the refinancing process. Here is our situation:
Current loan: 30 year FHA, 7.5% rate, 9 years paid in, ~$750 per month payment
Home Improvement: $15,000 in siding to our house, financing through the siding company for 15 years translates to ~$150 per month payment
$900 per month total
New Loan assuming the appraisal meets our expectations: 15 year fixed at 5.875%, ~$880 per month, closing costs rolled into the loan, no upfront money from us, $12,000 from home equity to pay for siding (the bank gives us a $12,000 check to put with $3,000 of our own money to pay for the siding).
Benefits: $20 less per month total payment, will own my home in 15 rather than 21 years :D
If you financed a few years ago at a higher interest rate, you should definately check out the mortgage market right now. It is also a good time to enter the housing market if you feel comfortable with you job situation.
-DavidCPA
We refinanced earlier this year and got a similar good deal. It’s a great time for homeowners to make a move.
–Dave
My wife called me a few minutes ago and told me our mortgage finance person had secured a rate of 5.75% rather than 5.875%. That is worth about 6 bucks a month :D
-DavidCPA
I just did this today. I first had checked the - have lenders fight over you thingy. Yeah lenders fight over how big they can make the closing costs. We are going with a local lender.
I always forget how much paperwork there is to sign.
Chet
I hate all the paperwork. I’m not certain, but I think I actually signed more paperwork on the new car we just bought than we did on the house.
Oh, and my least favorite moment while getting the mortgate: Seeing the dollar amount that you will actually have paid for the house when all is said and done. I could go my whole life without seeing that number.
If you’d bought $1,000.00 worth of Budweiser (the beer, not the stock) 1 year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the 10 cent deposit, you would have $214.00.
Talk about pissing away $786.
(rimshot!)
Seriously, the current version of this is one of the first things novice traders hear: “Buy low, sell high – but not necessarily in that order.”
Actually, the first thing they hear is, “Go get me a slice of pizza, from Queens.” They hear the wisdom when they get back.
ROTFL!
But seriously, can you deduct the cost of aspirin along with your losses?
Works for short-sellers :)
I have some Sharebuilder accounts I used to DRIP with a few years ago and suspended it for the most part since everything seemed to be going downhill (not really the point of DRIPing but I needed the money) but I used one of my accounts with some spare money market change lying around to pick up about $30 worth of Worldcom… got 130 shares or so, not a heck of a lot, but now that the company’s bankrupt… gah. Was a nice gamble… heck if it went up to $5 a share I’d make a nice profit but oh well. Damn penny stocks :)
— Alan