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Old 12-07-2017, 06:17 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer View Post
No, they were not. In the late 90s, everyone and their pet turtle was making money in the stock market. America was going to have a mass upper-class, or so we were told.

Then, of course, everything nosedived. At least it was fun while it lasted.
Back when it was still roaring, a colleague of mine sold off a chunk of stock to buy a nice new Mercedes with all the trimmings. (Seriously, that car looked like someone just checked every options box. Essentially a Mercedes with another Mercedes' worth of doo-dads in it.) Then the market crashed, his remaining stock was worthless, and the IRS showed up with a bill for that nice chunk of cash he'd made in the market six months previously. He seriously considered selling the damn thing, only the market for luxury cars had nosedived as well. In the end, he borrowed from his 401(k). Not a happy camper.
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Old 12-07-2017, 07:34 PM
 
Location: East Bay, San Francisco Bay Area
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I worked at an Fortune 500 company in Silicon Valley at the time and saw my stock options rise to several million dollars at the peak (March 2000), I was not fully vested, and so I could not exercise the first batch until September 2000. I sold my first batch, then the stock price started to drop further. I knew we were in a big bubble. Stock options were underwater a few months later.
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Old 12-10-2017, 07:22 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SuiteLiving View Post
So does BitCoin survive and thrive after the inevitable crash, does it survive and become marginalized or does it become roadkill?

That's the question in my mind.
My mind says that some form of cryptocurrency will emerge and "work." bitcoin isn't money since it's going up for no reason.

"Real Money" - gold - sometimes goes inexorably down or up where one can make a lot of money ( "for no reason" ), where it is just "returning to average." It did so in the 1970's. It did so for twenty years after that again. The 1980's and 1990's were wonderful for traders. Then recently, it was wonderful again till 2011. The next runup should take gold to $10k. The problem is; will that runup start in 2018 or so or 2028 or so? Before then, will it go to $700-800? That would be nice.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hikernut View Post
Regardless, it's still been a poor investment. Look at the Nasdaq Composite, Fidelity's Select Electronics sector fund, Jacob Internet Fund, etc. All have done worse than the overall US market if you bought them at the wrong time. All of the collective growth, so far at least, has not made up for the excessive prices of the day.
This yet another reason you should not buy all at once. Most people bought in the early 1990's, mid 1990's, etc. Sure, their 401(k) "cratered," but someone buying evenly through the 1990's-2000's did just fine. Alternatively, everybody has stories .....

It's the same story for people who bought gold all-at-once in 1979 <OR> 2011. Their technique was bad more so than their investment. Someone who buys over time, also has time to unwind later on. Nobody buying gold in the 70's or 00' did badly as long as they didn't "pile in."

The crash was only bad for dumbsheets who didn't understand what they were doing. It wasn't like the housing bubble where people couldn't move or lost their jobs and as a result; their homes. Everybody has stories .....

Don't buy all at once and don't buy one thing that's more than 20% of your net worth. Someone who bought a $250k house who might have $5k in taxable assets "deserved" to get crushed, IMO.

Last edited by IDtheftV; 12-10-2017 at 07:35 PM..
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