During the Dotcom Bubble in the mid to late 1990's Nasdaq index rose from 1,000 to 5,000, on March 10, 2000 it reach @ 5048.
We purchase our home in '94 @ 8.5% interest and 20% down payment while home prices was just recovering from it's downturn in the early 90's.
Going back to the stock market bubble in the mid to late 1990's, My stocks was initially doing well riding the uptrend with very little knowledge and experience I thought I was doing well trading in and out. My brokerage firm was Datek if any of you guys even remember it. Now it's TD Ameritrade.
Riding the uptrend I borrowed Equity from our house and bought more tech stocks Amazon in particular while it was trending upwards, and even worst I leverage my account so when the bubble burst I lost everything. "Damn Amazon" no "Stupid Me". Datek had to sell to cover my debt and I just watched in horror . There wasn't anything I can do about it, a very hard lesson to learn.
"SOOO... HUGE LESSON LEARNED NEVER LEVERAGE YOUR ACCOUNT ESPECIALLY IN AN UPTREND."
During the Dotcom crash I and many of my co-workers watched our 403-B go down in value.
But I didn't give up, I just change the way I was investing, I became cautious "you can't beat the market" . I did dollar cost averaging (I use both Shareowner Online or Computershare) with blue chip stocks until last year, I stop my contribution but continue to hold the stocks for their Dividends (Dividend Reinvestment Plan). Thank GOD I finally came to my senses.
In the early 2000's after the Dotcom crash the banks fueled the economy with borrowed money with home equity loans, refinancing, which started the United States Housing Bubble which peak in 2006, I thought to myself this is crazy they are fueling the economy with borrowed money.
In the late 1990's to early 2000's I started a jewelry business, selling gold, diamonds, precious stones and pearls to friends and colleagues and this was when gold was around $280. I can never forget this number as when I was visiting the Philippines and my brother-in-law who had a pawn business, we were both watching TV and he called my attention "Looked Gold is up $280", we both acquired our gold investment when it was below this level. Then gold started going up so it became difficult for me to continue my business, I closed it and while I continued working as an RN I slowly accumulated physical gold to hedge against the US$.
In 1997 while working as an RN, I became license real estate agent, that gave me a lot of knowledge and experience in the industry. It was difficult though driving people around, it was taking so much off my time, I would do it when I was off from my full and part time job as an RN and when the kids are in school.
In the mid 2000's during the housing boom while the banks was fueling the economy with borrowed money me and my husband decided to borrow money from our home equity and acquired my second business or should I say our second business, we acquired an existing business, an Assisted Living Facility in Upstate NY. At a time when a lot of home owners where borrowing money against their home to renovate or purchase their second home we decide to invest the money instead. Our business venture didn't come easy it came with tons of stress and buckets of tears. There is no such thing as easy money you have to work hard for it and take loads of RISKS.
Business lending was so easy in 2006 or before that. We had to wait almost two years to get our license from DOH, which we got in 2008. Mission Oaks National Bank brokered our loan with Zion Bank. (They told me they easily approved our loan since in CA there's a lot of similar business "that are doing well" "or maybe were doing well" the only difference from NY is, in CA DOH allows for a few beds to be operated while NY is highly regulated and we had 60 beds). The agents of Mission Oaks Bank kept on pushing us to close soon, I guess so they can get their commission ( Subprime mortgage crisis). We had to reschedule our closing probably if I remember right more than three times. They were even threatening us on cancelling the loan. But they too waited almost two years to close our loan. This was how crazy the housing bubble was in 2008. We closed our loan in March 2008 after obtaining our license from the DOH.
Prior to September 2008 we had already moved our 403-B to a more conservative investment, we didn't want to get caught in the market crash once again and I also had advised some of my colleagues to do so. In September 2008 the collapse of Lehman Brothers brought the global financial system to the brink of complete collapse.
At the moment we are in the process of selling our business, we had sold the real estate part of our business in 2016.
"SO" the big so "lessons learned" - we had to stay "diversified".
- Real Estate
- Dividend Paying Blue Chips
- Physical gold
- BITCOIN and some Altcoins
Ok I'm sorry, I'm tired i'll continue tomorrow or whenever I can. Thanks so much for reading. And thanks in advance for your upvotes and comments. I still have all my Bitcoin and some altcoin inspite of the downtrend.