Have you felt the "GFC"??

I used to be involved with a company in the early 1990's that use to teach investment strategies. When it came to shares the strategy was to use borrowed funds and use margin lending as well to increase the portfolio size.

However, the advise was always to leave a significant buffer in your margin loan to compensate for a share market crash.

Unfortunately the share market seems to pull in people at a time when it is performing really well as most people are motivated by fear and greed. It is said that the share market crashes when the last skeptic finally gets onto the band wagon.

Therefore the lesson is to go against what other people are doing. Get in early and hold your shares long term (like property), diversify your portfolio across the various industry sectors. If possible learn technical analysis, it would have prevented a lot of the losses that so many people endured.

In many ways the share market crash was long over due since the last official crash was in 1987.
 
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Effected us a bit:

- Business Revenue only up 3% over the last rolling 12 months which is not enough. Taking steps to improve that now...
- Property portfolio up 6% which is ok but not thrilling.
- Equities portfolio which barely existed 12 months back now sits at just under 20% of gross assets, though % gain so far isn't thrilling - but then we're going for long term growth not trading for profit. GFC was the push I needed to get into this segment though, so I take it as a positive.
- Wife has applied for different position at work with a small increase in pay starting January (wasn't feeling challenged).

So GFC has had a bit of effect, some positive, some negative - but nothing overly earth shattering.
 
A bit of a reminder on just how well Australia has fared on a relative basis with the GFC, we have/are doing great.

The situation in the Baltics focusing on Lithuania.

* Falls of 20+% in real estate, difficult to guage as it's very hard to find buyers and building projects everwhere from individual builders to estates are sitting semi-finished.

* Rents are down and it's much harder to find tenants.

* Unemployment perhaps around the 25% mark, official figures not to be trusted. Under employment and lower wages are normal.

* Smaller towns have deserted shops, people just have to leave the country to find work.

* Decreasing population, though Vilnius does OK on a relative basis as people tend to move there from the country and smaller towns.

* Sword of Damocles over this part of the world at the moment is the possibility of currency devaluation as things are linked to the Euro, common to have mortgages at low interest rates dominated in Euros for newer homeowners

* Hangover from the huge property boom (Made our property boom look positively modest) is painful, not sure how far all of this process has been worked though and cleansed. Scandinavian countries and Austria I believe are on the hook in a big way.

We really are a lucky country it seems!
 
We really are a lucky country it seems!

I think so too.

Other than making finance harder to achieve, GFC has brought DHS projects my way. I'm about to grab another deal - selling a 3 unit site this time. All will be sold to DHS before permits are issued and before I settle on the land.
 
Bought a new header that gets delivered soon thanks to our nutcase governments 50% investment allowance. Deere and company USA is very thankfull. Plus a heap of other stuff and saved an enormous amount of tax.

You're not turning over > $2m per year then??
Most farmers in my circle of friends are stuck with only the 30% tax break.

Gools
 
i have definatly felt the gfc. on one hand i am better off lower interest rates, lower petrol prices

however no pay rise and for about the last 6months i havent had any work to do! seriously i go to work and do nothing for 8hrs! (alot of our clients work in the finance sector and are paranoid about losing their job or have taken massive losses on the stock market)
 
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