Showing posts with label post-mortem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label post-mortem. Show all posts

Saturday 13 June 2009

Post-mortem on your actions during the 2007 - 2009 severe bear market

What were you doing during the 2007-2009 severe bear market?

Let us look at the many possible actions one may have taken.

Sold totally at the beginning of the bear market.

Sold partially at the beginning of the bear market.

Sold totally at the middle of the bear market.

Sold partially at the middle of the bear market.

Sold totally during the Lehman crash in Oct. 2008

Sold partially during the Lehman crash in Oct. 2008

Sold totally after the Lehman crash.

Sold partially after the Lehman crash.

Bought more at beginning of the bear market.

Bought more in the middle of the bear market.

Bought more during the Lehman crash.

Bought more after the Lehman crash.

Kept you existing portfolio and ignored the market.

Went for a long vacation (2 years!).

Stop monitoring your stock prices.

Continuously monitoring your stock prices.

Stop monitoring the fundamentals of your stocks.

Continuously monitoring the news for fundamentals of your stocks.

Continuously relating the falling price to the returns of your stock (Wow, so cheap and getting cheaper).

Rebalancing your stock at regular intervals.

Continuously following Bloomberg and CNBC for developing news.

Ignoring Bloomberg and CNBC.

Following the gurus' opinions in investing: Marc Faber, Nouriemi, Soros, Buffett, Teng Boo, etc.

Ignoring the gurus.

Following the various blogs: "Ze Moola", "Fusion", "Samgoss", "Same gang" etc.

Ignoring the various blogs.

How were you emotionally?

  • Were you fearful when the prices tumbled?

  • Were you indifferent when the prices tumbled?

  • Were you happy when the prices tumbled?

What were your thoughts driving the above emotions?

  • Were these thoughts based on objective facts?

  • Were these thoughts emotionally driven?

Etc., etc.


There are many more specific actions you may recall. Anyway, which of these are most productive and which of these are totally non-productive and perhaps even destructive?

The recent 2007 - 2009 severe bear market offered a wonderful opportunity for you to review your actions during that period and reappraise your investing philosophy and strategy. Lessons learned will be of benefit for a lifetime. Well worth doing a post-mortem on what you did the last 2 years in your investing.


Cheers.