Did you lose money in the financial crisis?

I mean like shares or money you had saved for a rainy day?Did you lose money in the financial crisis?Not really thank God.Did you lose money in the financial crisis?
This questions could be answered in a couple of ways. The way that you make money on the market is through volatility. Prices need to go up and down. Every time somebody sells shares there a winner and a loser unless that stock always goes up and that rarely happens in the market.



Prior to a few weeks back you were able to short stocks when they went down, done through a margin account. (Shorting stocks is borrowing the stocks from the bank a certain price but not covering them until the price has dropped.)



But since this is not possible unless your are buying and or selling shares constantly through intra-day trading your most likely to lose money?



But myself personally I took this opportunity to average down my positions as well as my clients. Have I benefited yes. But until the election there's more red in the future. Did you lose money in the financial crisis?Every one has.



Most people don't realise it yet .. however anyone who contributes to a Company Pension scheme is looking at big losses .. (unless it's a 'Final Salary' scheme) - at a guess, your Pension is now worth about half what it was worth last year ..



Pension schemes were a major holder of Bank shares .. and apart from the collapse in share price, the Government has just seized almost half of them %26amp; there will be no dividends for the foreseeable future ..



Companies who have Final Salary schemes are going to have to put in at least twice as much as they did last year .. some Companies who already had massive Pension Fund deficits (like BA %26amp; RR) may well go bust .. and the rest will all have to reduce costs (so expect redundancies).



Finally there is the fact that the Government has to find the money from somewhere ..



They have 3 options :-

1) Tax = always a popular choice for a Labor government

2) Borrowing (Gilts etc) .. another popular choice - since it ends up costing the Tax payers a lot more "in the long run", however, "in the long run" there will be a Conservative Government they can blame it on ..

3) Print it .. the final choice of the incompetent .. unfortunately this causes inflation = the last time they did this we ended up with Mortgage Interest rates of 16% .. (whoops)



The final possible choice, reducing public spending in other areas, is a non-starter with a Labor Government ...Did you lose money in the financial crisis?
I have lost money in the stock market, I have lost due to companies going bankrupt, mostly bank related stocks. Now I have a portfolio of alternative energy stocks which I am holding for the long term.



I moved the rest into cash accounts, CDs and high interest savings.Did you lose money in the financial crisis?NO

to Steve: not everyone. I lost nothing. I made investments only in Europe at 12 percent a year.Did you lose money in the financial crisis?
No, I made money.