Tubes Asylum

RE: You paid too much...

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I bought Apple around 2002 for $18 a share, and in keeping with my investment strategy, sold when it doubled.

Of course had I kept it it would be worth much more today, plus there were a few stock splits in the mean time, but you can't cherry pick when you can't predict the future.

You could have bought Harley-Davidson in 1984 during the buyout and IPO (stock split I forget how many times but I know that the last time I did the math, $10,000 of HD in 1984 was worth $250,000 and that was during the 90's.

Apple was as low as $13 only nine years ago. It's not like people didn't have enough chances to buy in.

But, in the long term, investing in a basket of reasonably well run companies should give you an average return of about 10% a year. That would include times when the portfolio went down as well as up. In market speak, "long term" is not three years, it's thirty.

Investing is easy, and investing when you're young is a no-brainer, but no-one does it. If you put $100 a month for the three years from 18 to 21 and then never saved a dime again, you will have $460,000 when you turn 65 at the average return of an Index Fund which is a buy-and-forget stock.

In other words, you don't have to have a crystal ball to profit from investment; that return would be with no Apple or Alphabet or name-your-market-darling well timed buy and sell in your portfolio.

You always hear from us old farts that "I wish I knew then what I know now", and it's isn't all about how to get laid. And it doesn't mean who we tell, or how often, kids won't listen. I get it ... I didn't either. But I wish I had.


Edits: 04/04/17   04/04/17   04/04/17   04/04/17   04/04/17   04/04/17

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