Friday, October 8, 2010

Let it ride

 Twenty years ago I made the mistake of listening to a young broker who had taken over my account from his mother.  He had a wonderful picture of a yacht on the wall in his office and wore an expensive suit.  His mother, the only female broker in the office twenty five years ago, had guided me through some great stock moves.  With baby burp shoulder and children in a  double stroller,  I stopped in to see him. I should have known that my gut was much more in tune with scandal than his.

He hemmed and hawed about the marvelous thing that WorldCom was. Not only should I keep the money in the stock, which had tripled several times over, I should give him my house savings to buy some more.
 I wasn't that foolish, but I did keep my money in.  Four days later it was gone.  We still have a lump sum of capital losses to write off almost ten years later.

Fast forward to today.  I pulled every penny out of the market about three weeks before it crashed two years ago. We have returned most of it back in- starting at 7200.  Today, as the market hit 11000, my stomach began to sour.  I believe the market will stabilize, but staying in becomes risky at this point. My husband is not convinced.  He says stay, in fact lets dump my IRA in.
Tomorrow we will look hard at numbers.

When you buy Ford at 2, do you let it ride?

Thank the Lord the market is closed on the weekends.

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