Yikes

I’m a small-time investor; my portfolio includes a handful of stock in companies I admire, like 3M, Apple, and Schnitzer steel; I have some mutual funds I inherited from my parents; and I made a few investments in local companies—a really bad one in Jones Soda, and a not-so-good one in Weyerhaeuser. It’s never been enough to retire on, but it’s been a small comfort over the years to check my brokerage account and see that while I’m not getting rich, I have, over time, slowly increased my family’s net worth so that perhaps someday, I’ll be able to sit out in my backyard and drink domestic beer without having to worry where my next Rolling Rock is coming from.

Until these last few weeks.

Ugh.

I’m trying to take the long view and not panic; I do believe that by and large, investments in the securities of solid companies do pay off, and like my broker said, if you need the money you have in the market right now, you probably shouldn’t have it in the market.

Still.

It’s extremely unsettling to see those numbers in your online portfolio continue to get smaller and smaller. You can’t help thinking of all the things you could have had or done if you’d only made those numbers smaller with purchases rather than mere evaporation. It’s not like I could have bought a house or anything, but you know, a nice wool shirt or even a Conference Bike would have been nice to own.

I’ve always been intrigued by stories of people who were wiped out in the stock market crash of 1929 or even more, of folks who had the foresight to get out when the getting was good. Right now, it’s probably too late to be one of the latter, so I suppose I’m teetering on the edge of the former.

But at least I’ll have good tales to tell my grandkids about surviving the Depression.