number crunching

I have been crunching the numbers since I made the decision to leave our IRAs invested in the market throughout this painful crash. We were 100% stocks, and overweight in foreign stocks. Still are but they are all down. We will need to save at our current rate for four years to make up the losses we've incurred since January 08. That assumes what is invested stays flat for the next four years. It would be nice to save more but I'm not sure that is going to happen.

In good news, I am still pretty healthy and can go dig ditches as needed in order to pay the bills.

I'm going to open up a Roth IRA this year as future tax burden is likely to be higher than present day. I'll probably put everything into agricultural commodity index funds and oil if it stays low.

I write just to hear myself write

Each week for the last few weeks I've been able to get out and do a good track or run workout. Today we did 3 x 1 mile, I made the last one on 6:13.

The stock market dropped like a rock today. I had a couple automatic buy orders (limit orders) in. Luckily I was at the computer and put stop-loss orders in after the buys went through. These particular stocks went through my stops in short order. So I repurchased them at a lower price later in the day. (FAS and UCO if you are interested). God knows if the market will continue to plummet tomorrow or rebound a bit as people 'cover their shorts.' That is opposed to 'shitting your shorts,' which is what most people did when they looked at their 401k statements in December.


I missed both Kung Fu practices last week, I was tired and that practice is friggin' hard. But I'm back at it tonight.

I won $4.00 in an online poker tournament last night. It only took 4 hours, but it was a 300% return on investment.

Black Monday 2008

Today in my fictional stock market game I was a genius. I sold a few things short in the AM and had made 10% by the close of the market. Sort of expect more of the same tomorrow and the rest of the week. Panic and mayhem. In the real world my retirement account is taking a pounding. It is amazing to watch these institutions go floating by in the river of woe. This is why you should always hedge your bets in the real world. Of course I wish I'd sold everything in our 401ks, gone short on some ETFs, and then cashed out at night. But I didn't. If you have any play money I'd sell all the financials short and ride them down. It is going to be UGLY! When government officials start addressing the nation about keeping cool, you can bet it will be UGLY!

My prediction for the rest of the week is that almost everything will go down another 3-5%. Google will go up since they keep taking my (and everyone else's) ad money and transaction fees. GLD may also be on the way back up after dipping to the low 70s.

I swam almost 4k tonight, which makes 3 days in a row of swimming, which totally kicks ass.