|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
Soccerstar
Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Location: Kyungsangnamdo
|
 Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 6:33 pm Post subject: Help! The economy is killing us! |
 |
|
We invested 30,000 just before the economy tanked. Thankfully we don't have debts and we are still making enough to survive, but this ridiculous drop to 2004 levels combined with the super-low won traps us.
We can't pull out our money and we certainly couldn't pull it out and invest elsewhere.
It is agonizing watching everything sinking around us. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
victorology
Joined: 10 Sep 2007
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 6:45 pm Post subject: Re: Help! The economy is killing us! |
|
|
| Soccerstar wrote: |
We invested 30,000 just before the economy tanked. Thankfully we don't have debts and we are still making enough to survive, but this ridiculous drop to 2004 levels combined with the super-low won traps us.
We can't pull out our money and we certainly couldn't pull it out and invest elsewhere.
It is agonizing watching everything sinking around us. |
Did you invest it into the stock market?
I would re-evaluate your "we can't pull out or money" thinking. I'm not saying you should sell but this type of thinking is dangerous when investing in stocks. There's a lot of "pride" involved and a lot of people don't want to take a hard loss even if it's warranted. Invest with your head, not with emotions. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Beej
Joined: 05 Mar 2005
Location: Eungam Loop
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 6:50 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| I welcome another IMF type economic crisis. I would love to see $150flights to Thailand, empty flights back to the States, $400 hotel rooms going for 30 bucks a night in Malaysia and Indonesia. Bring it on. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Otherside
Joined: 06 Sep 2007
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 8:16 pm Post subject: Re: Help! The economy is killing us! |
|
|
| victorology wrote: |
| Soccerstar wrote: |
We invested 30,000 just before the economy tanked. Thankfully we don't have debts and we are still making enough to survive, but this ridiculous drop to 2004 levels combined with the super-low won traps us.
We can't pull out our money and we certainly couldn't pull it out and invest elsewhere.
It is agonizing watching everything sinking around us. |
Did you invest it into the stock market?
I would re-evaluate your "we can't pull out or money" thinking. I'm not saying you should sell but this type of thinking is dangerous when investing in stocks. There's a lot of "pride" involved and a lot of people don't want to take a hard loss even if it's warranted. Invest with your head, not with emotions. |
I agree with victor as far as saying there is a lot of pride involved and people don't want to take a big loss. This is especially true under normal circumstances where most expert suggest you ditch your losers and keep your winners. However, in the current market massacre, there are plenty of good stocks getting punished for no reason other than the sentiment in the market. This makes it hard to sort out which are winners and which are losers.
The big question is when the market will bottom-out. Many articles I've read state that when the market recovers from a big drop in value, most of the gains are made within 3 months of the turnaround; and you sure don't want to miss that. If you feel the market is near rock-bottom, than the best thing to do is stay put...on the other hand if you feel that we still have a way to go, it may be best to sell.
Additionally, conventional wisdom states that over the long term one will always make a profit in the stock-market (even if you invest at an all-time high). So it's just a matter of waiting it out. (The way things are looking at now, I reckon it will be a long wait...) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
jdog2050
Joined: 17 Dec 2006
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 8:45 pm Post subject: Re: Help! The economy is killing us! |
|
|
| Soccerstar wrote: |
We invested 30,000 just before the economy tanked. Thankfully we don't have debts and we are still making enough to survive, but this ridiculous drop to 2004 levels combined with the super-low won traps us.
We can't pull out our money and we certainly couldn't pull it out and invest elsewhere.
It is agonizing watching everything sinking around us. |
Can you swap the funds into a korean CD account and just wait for everything to settle down, or have you already lost a load? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
bassexpander
Joined: 13 Sep 2007
Location: Someplace you'd rather be.
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 8:52 pm Post subject: |
|
|
This reminds me of 8 months ago, when another user on here (not in this thread) was going off on me about how much money I was "wasting" for not investing in the Asian stock market, where he was clearning an easy 20 to 40 percent.
He balked at my lowly 7 percent interest rate at the bank. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
seoulteacher
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: Seoul
|
| Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 10:02 pm Post subject: Re: Help! The economy is killing us! |
|
|
| Soccerstar wrote: |
We invested 30,000 just before the economy tanked. Thankfully we don't have debts and we are still making enough to survive, but this ridiculous drop to 2004 levels combined with the super-low won traps us. We can't pull out our money and we certainly couldn't pull it out and invest elsewhere. It is agonizing watching
everything sinking around us. |
Read this article, below, tonight in a nearby (Victoria, BC, Canada) Starbucks`s odds & ends of newspaper sections...speaks to your situation, SoccerMom (Oops , sorry Soccerstar, I guess I`ve been watching too many political debates  ).
I`ll highlight portions below, but I figure it`d be worth your while to read it all. Perhaps best to simply hang tight (ie. don`t sell), if you can, & wait for the upturn?
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=7682e5fd-e2cd-4c33-a023-83ad20694430
'Mr. Market' is still not the right person to advise you
Don MacDonald, Canwest News Service
Published: Tuesday, October 07, 2008
My boss stopped by my desk last week and dropped off a 766-page book that he'd just received from the publisher.
There had to be serendipity in my acquisition of this tome, coming as it did in the same week the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P-TSX Composite recorded their biggest one-day point drops in history. (And let's just skip by Monday's dismal superlatives.)
It's the sixth edition of Security Analysis, a textbook first published in 1934 by two long-dead professors and investors called Benjamin Graham and David Dodd.
Security Analysis, together with Graham's much more accessible book, The Intelligent Investor, are the bibles of value investing. They set out principles that have guided not only Warren Buffett through his legendary career, but also a lesser-known group of super-investors and generations of others who aspire to invest their money well.
Buffett, who studied under Graham and Dodd at Columbia University in the early 1950s, has called The Intelligent Investor "by far the best book about investing ever written."
Throughout his career, Buffett has generously taught the principles of prudent investing he learned from Graham and Dodd and, thanks to him, many of the lessons will be familiar to those who take an active interest in investing.
Rarely in the history of the stock market has the enduring value of these precepts been more evident than during last week's panic selling and rarely has it been clearer just how few are willing or able to follow them.
The key idea is that -- in Buffett's words -- an investor should profit from market folly rather than participate in it.
An owner of stocks should regard himself as a patient investor in a business. The gyrations of the stock market should serve as an opportunity for the investor to sell or buy a piece of a business at an excessively high or low price.
Graham famously expressed the idea by creating the parable of Mr. Market in The Intelligent Investor.
"Imagine that in some private business you own a small share that cost you $1,000. One of your partners, named Mr. Market, is very obliging, indeed. Every day, he tells you what he thinks your interest is worth and, furthermore, offers either to buy you out or sell you an additional interest on that basis."
Sometimes, Mr. Market's idea of the value of the business appears justified. But, sometimes, he lets his enthusiasm or fears get the better of him and the "value he proposes seems to you little short of silly."
Graham asks if you're a prudent investor, or a sensible businessperson, would you let Mr. Market determine your view of the value of a $1,000 interest? The answer is, evidently, no.
"Basically, price fluctuations have only one significant meaning for the true investor. They provide him with an opportunity to buy wisely when prices fall sharply and to sell wisely when they advance a great deal. At other times, he will do better if he forgets about the stock market and pays attention to his dividend returns and to the operating results of his companies."
How has Buffett, the greatest investor in history, reacted to Mr. Market's latest bout of depressive behaviour?
Has he sold his stocks in fright?
No, he's doled out $8 billion for pieces of General Electric and Goldman Sachs.
The lesson is clear for all who will take it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Soccerstar
Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Location: Kyungsangnamdo
|
| Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 4:29 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Thanks, That is somewhat comforting. We will be holding out, because we certainly have no idea when the market will bottom out, but because we invested in the broad Korean Economy, Korea itself would have to collapse before our stocks would get totally worthless. I personally feel that as long as there are factories and people willing to work in those factories the economy will recover. Perhaps not right away, but it will someday.
If only...
If only I had invested 6 months after I did.  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
seoulteacher
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Location: Seoul
|
| Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 9:06 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Good, glad to hear that it was helpful.
I saw investing advisor Suze Orman being interviewed a bit earlier tonight on CNN, and she was recommending that investors follow a `Dollar Cost Averaging` strategy, especially now. It might be something to consider: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_cost_averaging
Oh, in checking for her name, I went to CNN`s Personal Finance page: http://money.cnn.com/pf/expert/index.html ...looks like it has some other investing advice that`s worth reading.
And - yes, lots to discuss in this area - I remember thinking, when Korean co. Doosan bought the US mini-excavator mfer Bobcat (a year ago?) http://baby.boom.com.hk/portfolio/research/asia_company_report.asp?symbol=042670&country=Korea&marketCode=KR that I`d invest in such a Korean company, if for no other reason than I`d bet that they - being a determined Korean co. - will do everything possible to make sure that the deal will work & that they will make a profit; but that it might take time, and that the investor has got to be in for the long term. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Tobias
Joined: 02 Jun 2008
|
| Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 9:30 pm Post subject: But you can make an educated guess |
|
|
| Soccerstar wrote: |
| ...We will be holding out, because we certainly have no idea when the market will bottom out...( |
Sure, you don't have any idea as to when it will hit bottom, but no one else does, either. All you can do is use your head and make an educated guess. Be sure you use your head. Don't bury it in denial and wishful thinking and thus make NO moves.
There's money to be made here if you can make the right moves. I'm talking a LOT of money. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
