25 years ago, did Oct 19 '87 influence you?

Asset allocation, risk, diversification and rebalancing. Pros/cons of hiring a financial advisor. Seeking advice on your portfolio?
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AltaRed
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Re: 25 years ago, did Oct 19 '87 influence you?

Post by AltaRed »

Taggart wrote: 25 Oct 2017 10:40I keep away from margin or any borrowing for the stock market. Always have.
:thumbsup: I've been chastised from time to time (not on FWF) for taking the same position. To me, it simply means those loaded to the gills on margin have never experienced, or known someone with, a big margin call. My mantra - If I don't have the cash, I can't afford to play.
Last edited by AltaRed on 25 Oct 2017 12:22, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 25 years ago, did Oct 19 '87 influence you?

Post by SQRT »

No significant effect on me. New job, new big house (and mortgage) no investments really. I remember that day though as it was the first day I started working on my CSC course.
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Re: 25 years ago, did Oct 19 '87 influence you?

Post by OnlyMyOpinion »

The '87 crash and recovery demonstrated to me that the sun does rise again.
We had only modest amounts in RRSP's at that point and were still building 5yr GIC ladders as a 'financial foundation'.
We were only two years past having paid off our house after buying it in '80 (didn't fancy the 14.5% mortgage rate.)
So future crashes were buying opportunities with 'hold on for the ride' applied to our existing holdings. Been waiting a while now for the next one - the roller coaster just keeps clickedy clacking upward.
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Re: 25 years ago, did Oct 19 '87 influence you?

Post by deaddog »

Had very little affect on me at the time. I had only been investing for a few years, had a buy and hold strategy and was dollar cost averaging into a few what were supposed to be blue chip stocks. worked out well over time.

It was only after I retired and experienced the tech wreck that I changed from being a passive to active investor to protect my capital.
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kcowan
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Re: 25 years ago, did Oct 19 '87 influence you?

Post by kcowan »

I had a big holding in megacorp through their employee stock plan and some trivial stock holdings that I purchased on advice from friends! My biggest asset was an executive acreage north of Toronto that was worth $1.05 million in 1990 before the 7 year decline.

It did not influence in a big way because my gains on the stock (some held since 1970) were obscene anyway.
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ockham
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Re: 25 years ago, did Oct 19 '87 influence you?

Post by ockham »

ockham wrote: 19 Oct 2012 22:35 I had about 40K in the market at the day's beginning, about 30K at the day's end: a loss, albeit on paper, of ~25%. It hurt.

For the short term, I learned that I had no idea what I was doing. It was 6 years before I put any new money in the stock market. For the longer term, I learned that at any given time, I have likely misestimated my own risk tolerance. I still use that day as a useful reminder.
Still true. I add in the feeling I had in October 2008.
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amphitryon
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Re: 25 years ago, did Oct 19 '87 influence you?

Post by amphitryon »

I would say no impact, and there was not all that much invested at the time. All ''investing'', as I understood it then was in RRSP's, one for each of husband and wife. By By 1973 we got into this on the advice of the controller at a company I worked for: it sounded good to me and he was a friend after all. Have not regretted it.
And there we basically held only laddered GICs and Bonds (Corporate and Municipal). We only sold when due and kept buying what we considered quality until we discovered this Forum and started to ghost and learn more. Parallel we were aggressively paying off our fourth home, which we managed by 1994. With no other debt and paying off cards when due, we had no real problems and started to expand our investing horizon by then.
The crisis of 2008 cost us more: by February 2009 we were down 32% of a quite decent combined portfolio almost all in low MER index funds. We stayed the course and by Oct. 2012 we were up past the drop-mark from 2009, not counting ongoing annual additions. Question now is, would we still have enough time left to repeat the process again during another hit? The plan so far is to do it anyway.
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