Ok it’s all my fault. From my June 2008 nestegg report

I am really excited to hear of all of this bear market talk and really hope the bear market is hear to stay for a while as at this stage in my life I am plowing a considerable amount of money into the stock market and I’d much rather be buying stocks falling 20-30% than having to purchase stocks who are constantly going up. I’ve often mused that someone my age who is contributing money for their retirement should be rooting for the stock market to get slaughtered and while the market hasn’t exactly gone down too dramatically yet, I’ll be happy to see my nestegg head closer to $50,000 than $100,000 if it means I get to buy some cheaper investments now and make more in the long run.

Well I think I pretty much got exactly what I was asking for. Overall this month my portfolio fell over 18% and while in August I was probably only one or two good months away from breaking the $100k mark I now find myself closer to the $50k mark than the $100k mark.

I would be lying to you if I said seeing my portfolio drop 1/3 of its value in the last month before the recent rebound didn’t make me a tad bit nervous. In fact as much as I’ve spewed on and on in my site about hoping for a really good recession while I am still young, when you see it head it can be pretty scary and make you think that hiding money under you mattress might be a better idea than throwing it into the stock market when things are falling double digits in one day.

There were even a few brief moments where just storing up cash instead of investing seemed like a pretty good idea, but then I gained my composure and realized what a great opportunity this is and how times likes these are how fortunes are built. Getting chances to buy quality companies at very low valuations when everyone else is crapping their pants and pulling their money out to “safe” places. Times like this make you realize why buy low sell high is a lot harder than it sounds. Buying low is very scary and when you are in the thick of things and aren’t looking at the big picture it is very hard to convince yourself that now is the time to be buying. Like I said in my last post I’m going to stay fully invested and have not made any rash decisions. I’ve also learned so much from this market downturn and plan to start putting these lessons learned into posts on this site. Anyway here is the value of my nestegg as of Oct 31, 2008.

Traditional Rollover IRA – $9,144.63 (-24.16%)
My Roth IRA – $26,301.33 (-16.66%)
Wife Roth IRA – $11,308.44 (-21.65%)
Current Traditional 401k – $22,546.59 (-16.22%)

Roth/Traditional % = 54.27% (tax free)

Total Retirement Nest Egg $69,300.99 (-18.43%)