Quote:Like someone else said, when it corrects downward, you only lose if you lose your nerve and sell.   That's the only way someone would have lost in the last recession.   And even then, they couldn't possibly have lost everything, unless they were doing something extremely risky and foolish.  

 

People seem to thing stocks are just little pieces of paper that have no inherent value.  But when you buy a stock, you buy a piece of a business.   It's the same as buying ownership of a tire store on Normandy Blvd.  Or owning a Chik-Fil-A.   If the business is making money, you're making money.   If GE is making 10 cents for every dollar that their stock costs, then you are making 10 cents on the dollar investing in GE.   The price of the stock may go up or down on a temporary basis, and that scares a lot of people, but if the company you invest in is making money, then in the long run the stock will go up and/or they will send you some of that profit.  

 

Where people lose is when they try to beat the market.   That's the average neophyte investor, who thinks he can use charts or technical analysis or some other shortcut.   If that stuff worked, we'd all be rich.  It doesn't work.   The only way to beat the market with individual stocks is to understand businesses.   That's how Warren Buffett made his fortune- fundamental financial analysis.  

stocks are a long term investment. one must be patient and disciplined enough to not panic when stocks slide backwards. I like index funds personally. The vast majority of pink sheet (OTC) stocks are scams, you can make money with them, but there is also the chance that one morning you wake up to find that a pink sheet company you invested in was suspended by the SEC or is no longer in business. Pink sheets are notorious for pump and dumps meaning the companies pay promotion companies (with company stocks) to heavily promote their stock so investors buy in heavily (the company makes a good bit of money) and the price per share rises, and then the promoters dump their shares for cash and the stock plummets and the company got investors money.

 

REITS have been doing well...The market is pretty volatile right now in a bearish state

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