Well stoney was a ripe 23 when the crash happened. He had stock mostly in IBM and 3M AT&T Bluest of the blue. They crashed too. I remember thinking since these stocks I had inherited at ridiculously low cost and I was frozen in them for tax implications... maybe the crash was a good thing!
What I remember most is the front page paper's with the goofy traders staring at the screens with their mouths open; the feeling of an out of control roller coaster- when will it end Will it end? It did of course. Due to the lower prices I could gradually begin paring away all my IBM to buy drugs and go out dancing.
The most crippling effect of the crash on an investor like me is not what you would think. Now cynical and hardboiled it made us sit back and watch the Internet's get away from us. That big speculative tech bubble was soooo obvious to anyone with a semblance of common sense the underwater fiber cables etc... when all that crap took off. We " crashers " were left behind and the new blood took over new blood that got rich around us, rubbed it in our faces, before dying in a fiery crash of their own making.
How does all of that work in our benefit or against us now? Once again I think against us- There is ingrained in us crashers a feeling that the market always recovers... quickly... and that could freeze us at an important moment.
Perhaps the best lesson we have learned lately is the most subtle-- those five years when big cap was stationary at 10,000. Stocks can and do go into prolonged periods of non movement and when that happens top coincide with a market low...... that leads to recessions and depressions. And me working again. ~ stoney