Fri, January 02, 2009
That Was the Year That Was
2008 has come and gone. There are a lot of people on Wall Street who are glad it’s gone and hope it stays far away.
I decided not to use this post to recount the relevant financial planning news items of the past year – most of it ranges from bad to dismal. Clearly, it was a doozey of a year to start writing a blog on financial planning and investing.
In the midst of all the bad news, I did write a few things that look pretty good in retrospect. In June, when the stock market was down but hadn’t yet gone into full rout, I advised against paying attention to the here’s-a-stock-you-should-buy-now articles that sprout like mushrooms during bear markets. That turned out to be good advice as stocks that looked like bargains became even better bargains in subsequent weeks.
In September, I recommended reviewing your finances, tidying your financial house, and making sure you’re adequately prepared for unpleasant financial surprises. Those are still good ideas if you haven’t done them yet.
On the other hand, it would have been cool if I’d predicted that every asset class except cash would tank, but I didn’t. I’ve found little evidence that jumping in and out of the markets with both feet is a workable long-term strategy, so I don’t much regret not telling everyone to move into cash in my first post. That sort of investing strategy only works in the short-term; if you’re going to bounce 100% in and out of the stock market, you have to know when to get back in, too. No one is able to reliably call market tops and bottoms. Maintaining a diversified long-term portfolio has come under a lot of criticism in the last few months, but I’d like to wait a while longer before declaring it a failed strategy.
Ironically, the awful market downturn that started in mid-September was a good thing for the blog. In the weeks before Lehmann Brothers went bankrupt, I wrote articles on investment safety, life insurance, and developing an emergency fund, among other things. Those pieces attracted a fair amount of attention when everyone started worrying about the financial markets. I remain surprised by the amount of traffic the FFS Blog gets.
I hope it means that I’m writing about things that are interesting; the articles seem to be attracting search hits from people looking for answers to their financial questions.
I definitely didn’t write as many “educational” posts on financial topics as I’d intended last year. There was so much going on that those posts are still rattling around in my head. I hope to get them out of there and into the blog in 2009.
