Well today Lehman Brothers (LEH) filed for bankrupcy. This is the company that helped finance the construction of the railroads in the 19th century. These guys have been around for almost 160 years! And yet despite decades of prudent investing and a solid business, Lehman couldn't pull itself out of the mortgage mess.
It's been an UGLY year on Wall Street.
Take a look at this chart and you can see just how bad this year has been.
I took a look at the chart too and I don't fret. Why? Sure, in the YTD the market has been in a gut-wrenching spiral downward. I've watched my portfolio sink deeper into the red. But here's the catch. I'm not a short term sort of guy. I'm much more interested in what happens when I buy and hold.
So I dragged the time-frame indicator on the bottom of that chart back over to 1990. And you know what - the chart looks a lot different! THOSE are the kinds of results that matter to me, the long term kind. That's why I'm eying this painful market downturn with an eager eye. With so many great companies on sale, how much money I can make in the next 18 years is essentially limited by how much I can plunk into those solid companies right now!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment