"As always, life and business went on and the brave made a profit."
I agree with you, but we mustn't forget that this is partly survivor bias, too... Much money was lost on bets that turned out wrong. I remember being glued to the news for hours in autumn 2008, and doing the maths over lunch with my colleagues on how much I would've made on a local bank's stocks had I actually bought the evening before, like I said I was going to (didn't have the balls in the end :) ). Either way that was on a Friday, and on Monday they were nationalized and many people lost their life's savings... I would've been really screwed had I gone through with it.
Too true. I remember AMD being at $1.80 at the bottom of the trough, and thinking to myself "What a bargain!" Of course, that was the day that Lehman had collapsed and who knew what else was going to go down with it, so I held off. It went up to over $10 at one point since, and today it's around $8.50. Would've made a killing off it :-/
Still, hindsight is 20/20... and for every winner there are scores of others who were severely burned by taking the risk. I don't regret not going for it much.
I agree with you, but we mustn't forget that this is partly survivor bias, too... Much money was lost on bets that turned out wrong. I remember being glued to the news for hours in autumn 2008, and doing the maths over lunch with my colleagues on how much I would've made on a local bank's stocks had I actually bought the evening before, like I said I was going to (didn't have the balls in the end :) ). Either way that was on a Friday, and on Monday they were nationalized and many people lost their life's savings... I would've been really screwed had I gone through with it.