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u/ChasingDivvies 2d ago
As someone who has been there done that, DCA and chill. Is it stressful and depressing watching your gains disappear and even go into the red? Absolutely. But WHEN the market recovers you will want to have been buying cheap the whole time lowering your avg price per share so you hit profits sooner and get even bigger gains after. So whatever your schedule has been, stick to it.
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u/noicenator 1d ago
You sound experienced. What's the worst bear market you lived through? Did you run out of cash to DCA at any point?
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u/ChasingDivvies 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hands down, 2008. It was kinda like this for a lot of people in that I was just getting started. I was dumb and naive. I had invested in companies I knew. One was BoA, because I had a really good relationship with them, in that two friends worked for them in the management level. I watched as my stock crumbled, I mean straight up went to the floor. But they had told me there was no talk of anything terrible itself with the bank. Like I am talking it went from about $50 to about $5. Like absolutely rocked. I just kept thinking it cant get worse, then it did. But at a certain point, (poker was really big for me at this time) I felt like I was pot committed. Like if I cut now, I locked that loss in and I just had to see it through. With my friends recommendation, I doubled and tripled down. Like I seriously poured every dime I had into that damn stock. Because as they said and the TV said, they simply were too big to fall. (Lesson learned, nothing is too big to fail) If BoA went down, it would be like America itself failing. I was young, in my 20's, about 25 to be exact. Still living at home, no real responsibility. So I could gamble. (Again, I was a gambler, poker was a major part of my life. Like when I wasn't working I was either at a table irl or online). I feel like it was a year or two, but I had 3x'd my investment. I had brought my average cost per share down to the $5 range, don't remember where exactly, we didn't have the tools we do today. Anyway, in like 3 years, I had 3x'd my investment and it kept climbing, slowly but steady. I eventually cut em loose for better opportunity, but yeah, I learned many many lessons during that time, including how dumb lucky I had been. And it was luck. But I learned about DCA'ing to bring costs down and how much it benefited me. Had I not DCA'd and kept the original investment, guess what? It's never recovered. IIRC, BOA has not broken the $50 mark since. Instead of taking a L, I reaped massive gains that set me up for where I am today. Have mistakes been made since? Absolutely. But it's a constant education process. Hell, Buffett still makes mistakes and he's made an entire life out of investing. You only lose if you don't learn.
Edit: Just thought of this, another lesson, fundamentals matter. All stocks are taking a hit right now, regardless of whether or not these tariffs directly effect them. The ones that will whether the storm the best are those that do business here. Also, consumer staples or defensive, whatever you want to call them. Shit people are gonna buy no matter if it's $5 or $20. Those get you through times like this. I won't say to buy SCHD, but look at their holdings. Oil/gas, tobacco, Coke, Home Depot, etc. No matter what, people are gonna get sick, people need fuel for their cars, people are gonna stay caffeinated, home repairs/improvements need to happen, etc.
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u/noicenator 21h ago
Wow, you've lived lol. Thanks for sharing your story!
I liked how you highlighted how your poker knowledge applied to your investment decisions (though you also highlight that in retrospect, it was also luck). It's interesting that had you not doubled/tripled down, the initial loss would have been "locked in" (realized) and you would have had to build back up again. But you didn't, and 3 years later, the invested amount 3x'd. It's interesting that while you consider it to be a mistake in retrospect, it kinda set up you for the future because it worked out.
I'm curious - say I'm a 25 year old with a bunch of $BAC (Bank of America), essentially a mirror situation to yours from 2008. What's the right move here? Don't buy more shares but also don't sell? DCA into ETFs instead?
[stocks] that will whether the storm the best are those that do business here
I know this is the r/ETFs sub but one stock that comes to mind is $COST (Costco). They seem to have held up somewhat better than the rest of the market (but it's also probably too early to say definitively if that will continue).
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u/NotOnoze 1d ago
I wanted to say thank you for your wisdom. I made some gains from a put for Friday and I took that and put 2/3 of it into Nvidia and BRK.B and I immediately regretted it because I should have thought that it'll only get worse but you're right, at the end of this it'll have been chill. I'm in no rush!
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u/smooth_and_rough 2d ago
After 2008 crash, I pulled back for obama's first term. The market was down 2.5 years and I thought I was smart. Then I missed the recovery.
Better to DCA with smaller amounts during volatile market. Just one person's opinion.
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u/anniekaitlyn 2d ago
This is going to happen to so many people. I’m glad you learned that lesson while you still had time to recover
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u/suchahotmess 2d ago
I upped my 401K contributions in early 2009 because I was 23 and didn’t need the money. Still grateful to have done that.
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u/lazorback 1d ago
I wanna DCA bigger amounts, actually 😂
I've got a bonus coming my way in a few weeks and I'm already salivating when I think of dumping that bad boy straight into the market!
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u/Michaelzzzs3 2d ago
You’re advocating for buying more high buying less low, that doesn’t make sense
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u/smooth_and_rough 2d ago
DCA means Dollar Cost Average. Keyword is "Average".
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u/Michaelzzzs3 2d ago
No shit. I’m arguing against you saying “with smaller amounts” it’s better to put 20 bucks a week extra into the market during bear markets like this rather than putting 20 bucks a week less
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u/BigMarzipan7 1d ago
You’re right. If you’re financially able to do so, send way more money during a downturn. That’s how you get rich.
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u/dealchase 1d ago
Unfortunately this is always the way. What I've learned is that you should never panic.
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u/dreamofguitars 2d ago
Reddit is the biggest doomer platform I’ve ever found. People are funny. This is spot on.
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u/ImpromptuFanfiction 1d ago
I wonder how many people rage inexplicably at their keyboards then just do normal shit like shower, get coffee, say hi to your neighbors etc lol
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u/Life_Indication1190 1d ago
In the market since 2006. Experienced many dips and crashes. Number 1 rule: focus on keeping your job Number 2: DCA what you can at these lower prices. Unless we go into a global zombie apocalypse, markets will ultimately recover…
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u/Ordinary-Advisor7616 2d ago
This could still go down 10s of %, people need to chill
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u/Hollowpoint38 1d ago
No, people need to wake up and assess their risk tolerance. They also need to run the very realistic scenario in their head that they might lose their job and might not find a new job for 1-2 years. That's what happened in 2008 and 2009. Took several years for a lot of people to find work. And no stimulus like 2020. Was like $400/week in UI and then it ran out.
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u/LuminousThing 2d ago
Better to make peace with volatility now. I’m not retiring for 30-35 years and even if I do, I’ll probably find some low stakes side gig. Just dropped 420$ in my Roth IRA for VTI/VXUS.
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u/Individual-Heart-719 1d ago
Y’all got soft hands. I’ve seen my portfolio down 30%+ before, that’s nothing. DCA.
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u/ImpromptuFanfiction 1d ago
From “DCA and chill” to “the American economy is irretrievably doomed”. It’s one of the interesting parts of the stock market to see people react so whipsawingly.
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u/Punk_Roth 1d ago
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u/filbo132 2d ago
Sums up Reddit. Everyone is selling. I'm lucky, I began investing during the '08-09 market crash, so this doesn't phase me at all.
The current economy sucks and this will have consequences for sure, but at the same,.it's not like I can do anything about it.
Cash is good for short term, but not for long term, with that said. I do have cash and short term stuff, but thats more for my emergency fund....I'm not a real estate guy or an entrepreneur, so the only way to hopefully have a retirement is through investing. Everything else will just be eaten up by inflation.
In then meantime, I get paid and invest in my etf's all the way down like I did in '08-09 and hope eventually a recovery knowing it can take maybe a decade or more maybe for the market to recover, but I don't need the money any time soon, so it's fine, I can be patient.
FYI, my main ETF is VT and Xeqt (Basically VT for Canadians except it has more exposure to the Canadian market), so at least 40% is outside US companies.
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u/AlfalfaGlitter 2d ago
08-09 market crash, so this doesn't phase me at all.
It doesn't really matter. Selling is either a good idea or it isn't.
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u/anniekaitlyn 2d ago
It’s only a good idea if you buy again before it comes up. Most will miss it
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u/AlfalfaGlitter 1d ago
Yeah but where is the bottom?
Tomorrow you see an unexpected rise of 3% and you think "bull trap". And on the next day the orange goblin gets a micro and says "we will lower the tariffs by 50%" and you know you are already late because the premarket will screw you hard.
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u/anniekaitlyn 10h ago
Even a little green is a sign that we are near the bottom. People are itching to get back in even though they just jumped out lol
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u/Pinocchio98765 1d ago
Held 200k back waiting for this moment - starting to DCA it from now on. Hoping this should lead to a serious return in 5-10 years from now.
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u/saminvesto00 2d ago
I am surprised there are so many pessimists here, worrying the market will take decades to recover, making it looks like investing is not worth it. i hope they are just trolling and not for real
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u/suchahotmess 2d ago
It’s a very real chance. I’m personally optimistic that it will be <10 years for recovery but if he isn’t stopped Trump could fuck shit up in ways that we don’t recover from in my lifetime.
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u/saminvesto00 2d ago
son, investing has risk. if you are chicken about it, don't invest. stick with your cd or continue to live paycheck to paycheck
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u/suchahotmess 2d ago
I manage my risk at a level I’m happy with, and part of that is being realistic about the world around me.
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u/spicyRice- 1d ago
What’s different here? A self inflected and unpredictable trade war with the entire world makes picking ETFs very difficult. “Buy the dip” when a correction happens. This isn’t a correction. This is a restructuring of the global trade alignment which used to benefit US companies, now I’m not so sure. And if you’re 100% positive on anything you’re probably wrong.
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u/Big_Being_225 1d ago
Every dip has a legit reason behind it.
When stocks were 30-50% down in March/April 2020, people weren't thinking it would just magically bounce back. People were talking about permanent damage to the global economy and wondering if it could ever recover from this unprecedented shock.
There's always reasons it could bounce back, and there's always reasons it could collapse further. If everyone believed the 15% dip was temporary and was expecting a bounce back, we wouldn't be 15% down in the first place.
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u/NemeanChicken 2d ago
I didn’t sell other than slightly rebalancing towards international stocks and bonds over the last few months, but it’s worth acknowledging that this isn’t a normal bear market. Recent bear market have had relatively definable causes like the subprime mortgage crisis or COVID. This is stressful, but occurs on the backdrop of stability. Currently, the US is unilaterally flipping the board on the global economy at a moment when US markets had been driven to record levels as an attractor of global capital. How exactly this will develop is unclear, but it’s scary stuff for the passive investor.
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u/StandardWizard777 2d ago
DCA assumes the dip is temporary and things must improve.
The US isnt going in that direction. Things are going to become fundamentally shittier for the US soon.
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u/Non_Silent_Observer 2d ago
Even if it takes a decade to get back to where it was, DCA is what will have people coming out of that period profitable. I do agree things will be shitty for a little while here, maybe even a long while. I still feel that there’s too many powerful people who depend on the US markets to let them fail long term.
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u/StandardWizard777 1d ago
I'm just worried the damage may be worse than a decade. There are indexes around the world which have stayed flat for longer, and I'm worried the changes Trump is making may have a permanent effect which puts the US on par with this and ends the century of American exceptionalism which made investing in, for example, the S&P 500 a 'safe bet'. What if we really do just see a decade of rot, and then stagnation and the global economy reroutes around the US?
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u/Non_Silent_Observer 1d ago
I mean anything is possible. I still think that DCAing what you can afford to is still the best option long term. Even if it takes 2 decades it’ll still have investors coming out profitable.
Either way I’m hoping for the best and expecting the worst.
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u/mister_nippl_twister 18h ago
Maybe better to put more in emerging markets instead. And bonds i guess. EU kinda doesnt look pretty now in this situation either.
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u/watcherofworld 2d ago
Shhhh, the midwestern boomers who bought their house for 10k will get scared.
You're right though. If you listen to how countries (notably the EU), say "it's rewiring to different markets" which means global trade routes and markets are just going to circumvent the U.S. and head to Latin America or Canada.
Globalization isn't going to stop because DT expects the literal world to bow to him. It's just going to leave the U.S. while we go back 70 fucking years in our economy.
It's a complex economy and grandpa gets scared by complexity. So now we all have is regressing 2-3 generations of growth.
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u/Eclipsan 1d ago
The EU isn't a country.
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u/watcherofworld 1d ago
What... what do you think United "States" mean? The 5th largest economy in the world is California.
Economic Blocs? individual countries? idc, you know my point.
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u/bonerb0ys 2d ago
it's taken us back to July 2024. i would love to have the opportunity to go back in time and dump more cash into my investments. Over a long enough timeline, it goes up and to the right.
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u/IntellectAndEnergy 1d ago
Always place a valuation on what you’re considering buying. If it looks expensive and you believe the probability of losing money is high don’t buy it (whatever it might be). Nothing has an infinite value.
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u/bertfotwenty 1d ago
What if everyone just turned into a bull for 1 day. Get back to the top, then bear/bull business as usual?
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u/EmergencyFrogs 1d ago
I agree with the sentiment of this. What I'm having a hard time reconciling is how there's a benefit to a bear market if you're DCA'ing. You're gonna ride the wave down and back up. It seems to me it just makes sure you stay in the market.
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u/Playful-Wasabi-9560 1d ago
Because the lets say 500 bucks ( fixed amount) you put into the market will simply buy you more stocks when we are low. If you buy a fixed amount of shares each month then you will have less benefit from it
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u/LastChans1 1d ago
🤔What's that Mike Tyson quote? Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face. 😏🤜😖☠️
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u/SecondSt4ge 1d ago
Whether you sold for a 5% loss or 10% loss you’re claiming loss. Sure you could’ve sold and tried to reposition. But I work 5-6 days a week, I got shit to do. 10% can easily be made up in a year even at these lows.
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u/anon07141326 1d ago
These comments forget who is in the White House and how they have fired all of the adults in the room. There are no more economists in the west wing, they don't just say what the president wants to hear. We don't have Reagan or Bush or Obama to bail us out again. But sure buy the dip, I'm sure in one week this will all be sorted just like they'll be home by Christmas.
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u/Revolutionary-Owl980 2d ago
First time bear. I had no idea it was this stressful.