Vince Cable Financial spokesman for the Lib Dems advised savers to invest in shares on Jan 8th suggesting they were undervalued, The opposite seems to have been the case. The FTSE plunging over a thousand points, dividends being slashed. Disastrous advice as it turns out.
Remember, share values can go down as well as plummet.
I don't think anybody can really be seeing shares as anything other than a several year investment at the moment, can they?
Calling the bottom is a very difficult thing. I believe in the 1929 crash more people lost money trying that trick than any.
But as someone else posted, shares are a long-time investment.
They always used to say that shares *always* make money over 10 years. I note from the F & C statement this morning that they have adjusted the goalposts and saying they've done well over 20 years instead.
After watching Bloomberg, were you get all kinds of people talking about cds's, cdo's, and all other kind of weird things such as " buy the rumour" and "sell the news" i would think an amateur has no chance in this market. What led the FTSE upwards were financials, and they have led it down. There is no need to buy shares until we are out of recession, maybe two years.
I hope it's that short.
"They" need to research a bit of history then - shares can lose money even over
50 years. If you bought in 1900 and sold in 1950 you'd be down...It might be true if you feed money in over a period of 5-10 years or so and the sell in the same way, so avoiding being heavily exposed to peaks and troughs.
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