In my voyaging through the web on various investment message boards, there is a lot of chatter out there about how poor many investments have done. Many people seem to be questioning their holdings as they have gone sideways or down for the past 3 years. Take companies like Home Depot and General Electric (which I own) for example. GE has done nothing in terms of share price for the past 3 years. This can make it very difficult to hold on to a stock like this.
I do not believe that fundamentally anything has changed enough for me to sell so I continue to wait it out. One thing I found interesting over at about.com was a list of the top 10 market crashes of all time. When I think the market is having a real crappy time, I can now think of these times and get some solace (unless of course we see another crash to knock one of these of their pedestal!! Here are the top 5:
#5
Date Started: 11/3/1919
Date Ended: 8/24/1921
Total Days: 660
Starting DJIA: 119.62
Ending DJIA: 63.9
Total Loss: -46.6%
#4
Date Started: 9/3/1929
Date Ended: 11/13/1929
Total Days: 71
Starting DJIA: 381.17
Ending DJIA: 198.69
Total Loss: -47.9%
#3
Date Started: 1/19/1906
Date Ended: 11/15/1907
Total Days: 665
Starting DJIA: 75.45
Ending DJIA: 38.83
Total Loss: -48.5%
#2
Date Started: 3/10/1937
Date Ended: 3/31/1938
Total Days: 386
Starting DJIA: 194.40
Ending DJIA: 98.95
Total Loss: -49.1%
#1
Date Started: 4/17/1930
Date Ended: 7/8/1932
Total Days: 813
Starting DJIA: 294.07
Ending DJIA: 41.22
Total Loss: -86.0%
Pretty nasty stuff. Now times like this can test an investor’s resolve.