Amazon peaked at $95 a share in 1999 during the dot com bubble. When the bubble popped, Amazon crashed down to $6 a share. It wouldn’t be until 2009 that Amazon permanently got above $85 a share.
When the market is going down, that’s where the emotions come in. It’s hard NOT to sell when you’ve got individual stock plummeting from $95 to $6.
If you bought $3,000 in Amazon stock in 1999, it would have dropped to about $189. Think about how rough that would be emotionally.
However, if you bought and held onto that stock, today that stock is worth well over $3,000 PER SHARE (today it closed at $3,358.50). That means that if you had bought the stock at the highest price in 1999 ($95) and held onto it, one stock would be $3k. If you had invested $9,500 at the HIGHEST price in 1999, it would have dropped to $600, but would now be worth $300,000.
1999 – 31.57 stocks at $95/stock = $3,000 spent
2001 – 31.57 stocks at $6/stock = $189.47
2009 – 10 years later, finally back to a consistent break even of initial investment
2021 – 31.57 stocks at $3,000/stock = $94,710
You don’t know, I don’t know, and NO ONE knows if the market is going to boom in the next year or go way down. The point is to BUY AND HOLD. Plan on purchasing an investment and hanging on for a MINIMUM of 5 years.
Also, I don’t recommend buying just individual stocks, I recommend buying TARGET DATE INDEX FUNDS. But the point remains! Buy. Hold.
The only people that get hurt on a rollercoaster are the ones who jump off.