How are your investments doing?

[Tpondel]

Compound interest is fascinating. Someone mentioned the S&P500 at 10% for the last century. Here's $1,000 invested in 1925 then adding $100/month reinvesting dividends and capital gains. After so many years adding $100/month doesn't have much effect but notice what happens after about years 80...the rocket launches.
So it goes from 100s to 1,000s eventually $Millions/year in gains. This explains the "old money" wealthy families. As my Grandfather once said if someone invested properly, leaving it to heirs, within the 2nd-3rd generation no one would ever have to work again.

Wealth is often poorly managed by second and third generations, with studies showing that approximately 70% of inheritances are depleted by the second generation and 90% by the third. This dissipation is often due to a lack of financial education, poor decision-making, communication gaps, and a failure to plan, though the youngest generations may also have different investment priorities like growth-oriented or sustainable strategies.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

To those saying the market is too expensive…you realize it always appears too expensive at the moment .. for a given day, and circumstances?

Tomorrow, today’s prices will look like a bargain.

Here’s the S&P 1925-2025. 100 years of some people saying somewhere, along that timeline, on a given day/month/year, it was too expensive.

View attachment 4327471

I learned my lesson in 1982, when stocks were dirt cheap and I was flat broke. I wanted to buy so bad my teeth hurt, but I had no money. When 9/11 shut down the NYSE, I was in a better position and spent every cent I had on stocks. I made a killing. Rinse and repeat in 2008-2009. You can bet that any time stocks lose 50% of their value they are not too expensive. Your graph does not show anywhere near the massive dips that a panic causes. In 1982 the market lost 60%

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Historically, the markets always rose again; so those who were liquid enough to hold, came out ok.
Those Buffet types, who cannily had extra cash to hand, bought bargains and profited greatly.

So remember to stay liquid; preferably the capacity to not touch your stocks for a few years, just in case.

If the real armageddon comes and it all collapses, only the bunker equipped preppers will have an edge.
For a while. Maybe.

You don't need a bunker, but my debt free home on 90 acres in a low property tax area certainly had a lot of prepper thought put into it. Wood heat. Gravity feed water. Lots of deer and turkeys. Ranch style house with no steps. Wheelchair accessible master bath. Multiple income streams in addition to savings. Shop building for cottage industry. If the whole country falls apart, I will be better off than 90% and considered wealthy by comparison.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

When money forgets time, society forgets motion. When money relearns gravity, value becomes real again.

I never confuse money with wealth. My first investment is always something that that I will actually use, like my house and shop.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I added all my retirement accounts up again yesterday.

From 9/25/25 to 11/3/25 I'm up a little over 4.5% That is huge!

I occasionally add them up and keep the tallies in a book. The closest I have to a year on the random dates I pulled was 12/10/2024 to 11/3/2025 and I'm up 23.6% in that time! We have been blessed so far.

Don't count your chickens before they are hatched. Rural wisdom.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Compound interest is fascinating. Someone mentioned the S&P500 at 10% for the last century. Here's $1,000 invested in 1925 then adding $100/month reinvesting dividends and capital gains. After so many years adding $100/month doesn't have much effect but notice what happens after about years 80...the rocket launches.
So it goes from 100s to 1,000s eventually $Millions/year in gains. This explains the "old money" wealthy families. As my Grandfather once said if someone invested properly, leaving it to heirs, within the 2nd-3rd generation no one would ever have to work again. View attachment 4332153

That time frame is for immortals, like corporations and dynasty trusts. Returns like that are not available to humans.

 

[square1]

That time frame is for immortals, like corporations and dynasty trusts. Returns like that are not available to humans.

The Rule of 7 is the rule of SEVEN for a reason

 

[riptides]

It's down less than 1%. That's not a bubble burst.

Let's go back to 2008 for some context.

Can you imagine the melt down people would have today if they saw those losses?

The markets been pretty volatile. It seems this year alone, most every month it is taking a 1 percent hit.

I think what we have here is the new consistency.

 

[DarkBlack]

Your graph does not show anywhere near the massive dips that a panic causes. In 1982 the market lost 60%

I’m sorry , but you’re mistaken.
The market didn’t loose 60% in 1982.

There’s almost 3 years, 1980-1983.
1982’s drop was around 11% at the lowest.

There was a general bearish decline that took 16 years to recover, which started in the late 60’s and recovered at the end of 1982.
Here’s the start of each year’s S&P in that period.

 

[DarkBlack]

The markets.. It seems this year alone, most every month it is taking a 1 percent hit.

S&P is up 15% this year.
Not sure what market your money is in

 

[MossRoad]

... In 1982 the market lost 60%

You sure about that?

 

[riptides]

S&P is up 15% this year.
Not sure what market your money is in

Look at the DOW over the past year. Every month it has been taking close to or over a 1 percent "hit". My point being volatility is relative.

 

[DarkBlack]

Look at the DOW over the past year. Every month it has been taking close to or over a 1 percent "hit". My point being volatility is relative.

I don’t pay any attention to the DOW index. It’s an antiquated index of only 30 companies, out of thousands of companies.

S&P is much more meaningful with the largest 500 companies.
Even the Russell 2000 , 2,000 companies is up this year

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

Don't count your chickens before they are hatched. Rural wisdom.

So what do I do with all the eggs then?

 

[ultrarunner]

Let me tell you something that has been brewing...the baby boomers are no longer the dominant voting block. Millennials are now the largest voting block, surpassing Gen X . They are falling behind milestones their parents have made at younger ages. This being the biggest...

They are going to start voting en mass to socialize the profits made by the prior generations as a way to stay equal. Keep an eye in New York mayors race. Also, the 401k machine is being held afloat by AI, once the real earning are priced in and can't be sustained, it's going to start slow and then all at once. See .com bubble for a recent example of how that rug pull goes. The flow of 401k money is decreasing with the adaptation of AI. The financial markets will change and there is a lot of paper wealth that will disappear.

This thread is a classic case study told many times over, that the paper wealth is not seeing what is coming. If you are 60+...get your money out of the market. There is huge forward risk on the horizon. Save in real assets, not paper assets.

I think even housing in 10 years will be a complete 180 from where we are now. They will have to bulldoze entire blocks to keep the value of housing from completely cratering. Demographics are changing very fast...

Plan accordingly...

My investment is primarily income real estate and mostly local.

Prices are significantly down with each new listing priced less.

Case in point a neighborhood with tract homes selling around a million a few years ago is in the 700k range now.

It could just be the leaving California trend or more specifically my part of the SF Bay Area?

30 to 40% drop is significant.

 

[ultrarunner]

They do, I employ a lot of millennials' and they want what their parents had, a life that was not so expensive.

Many suburban neighborhoods are now full of Boomers at or near retirement. The Millennials and Gen Z have not moved in. Lots of gray hair, not a lot of kids. Ergo, the decline of Halloween. The suburbs are also generationally desynchronized. During the Boomer and Xer generation’s childhoods, the first two generations of suburbs were new with well made modest houses and more young, first-time homebuyers with children. Neighborhoods were vibrant. There is a change coming,

My biggest expense is taxes and property taxes lead… how can a typical starting out couple add $1000 to $1500 a month for property tax followed by another $500 to $700 for insurance and water bills with 80 gallons per day usage coming in at $150 month?

 

[lman]

My investment is primarily income real estate and mostly local.

Prices are significantly down with each new listing priced less.

Case in point a neighborhood with tract homes selling around a million a few years ago is in the 700k range now.

It could just be the leaving California trend or more specifically my part of the SF Bay Area?

30 to 40% drop is significant.

Those prices are still too high and they probably went up as fast as they're going down a few years ago. Just corrections in the market.

 

[riptides]

I don’t pay any attention to the DOW index. It’s an antiquated index of only 30 companies, out of thousands of companies.

S&P is much more meaningful with the largest 500 companies.
Even the Russell 2000 , 2,000 companies is up this year

Ok, so why harp on what I said?

There are many markets to invest in. What is your point?

 

[ultrarunner]

We have also had a pullback of hiring with a new minimum wage of $20

A couple working minimum wage is earning 80k not counting side gigs or overtime.

 

[lman]

My biggest expense is taxes and property taxes lead… how can a typical starting out couple add $1000 to $1500 a month for property tax followed by another $500 to $700 for insurance and water bills with 80 gallons per day usage coming in at $150 month?

Somebody's got to pay for helping the non-citizens.