expert : Noun: (eng, Ex spurt ) has-been drip under pressure
Why trust an expert who works for wages
If they were really good at >this< they would be the Warren Buffet of >this<
Sorry, AB, but I find this really small thinking. There are plenty of worthy endeavours in which it's possible to have a high degree of expertise yet not achieve enormous wealth. There are also plenty of people who are very knowledgeable about the operation of the market but temperamentally unsuited to participating.
If you don't know anyone who has had to delay retirement or, worse still, were using Storm to finance their retirement, get out a bit.
I'm with you on that front.
there are alot and would even say heaps of people out there that have lost both invest money and jobs
the biggest hit are the ones that have invested for retirement
Agreed. I know people whose super funds have halved in the last year, many of whom are 55+ and don't have time to make it up. Or who got margin called and thus didn't have the opportunity to "ride it out". Yes, yes, I know, they shouldn't have leveraged, and/or should have had stops etc, but that's not the point. The point is that
plenty have been affected, even people who weren't doing anything considered particularly aggressive or risky.
As Sunfish said, so many people are struggling, especially those who just retired and saw their retirement savings disappear, and no chance of recouping their losses. The low interest rate means that self funded retirees saw their income stream vanish. And many of them can't get their money out of frozen accounts - as GR mentioned.
Absolutely. I know of somebody in retirement who had a net worth approaching $10M. He got a margin call and lost
everything. The kids are now trying to find Mum and Dad somewhere to live.
We've been *relatively* unscathed, and like kum yin lau have been delighted to have interest rates drop, but that doesn't mean I haven't seen that this has been a financial disaster for many people. The main impact that we've felt is that when we had a cashflow problem (tenant disaster), whereas a couple of years ago we could easily have gotten a business loan or overdraft to "tide us over", in 2009 a relatively small problem (about 1-2% of portfolio value) *almost* sent us under this year, as the lenders wouldn't come to the party with more funds. Thankfully we've just kept our chins above water, but I confess it's been very challenging and stressful.