[steve8918]

Everyone was calling for a crash, but it took years before the markets actually started crashing. Anyone can make a prediction when there's no money behind it. Obviously everyone thought the market was toppy in 1999/2000, but if you followed your advice and shorted it, you would have lost plenty of money from 1999 to 2000. It probably would have bankrupted you.

For the record, I also made money after the dotcom crash and after 2008, having avoided buying anything during the boom and buying blue chip in 2001. As well, I sold all my investments in Sept 2008 and picked up more blue chip in March 2009. Selling all my investments in Sept 2008 was more luck than anything else, I sold because I thought October was going to be the 80th anniversary of the Big Crash in the 1920s, but I was off by one year, it was 1929 not 1928. Better lucky than good.

My point is, anyone who made money on the way up, which it sounds like the author did, didn't believe that the markets would crash. The author didn't even show flat returns, it was always net positive before, during and after 2 crashes. It just doesn't sound right to me.

[krschultz]

Why do you have to short it and lose money for 2 years? You can exit somewhere on the way up, sit on the sidelines, wait for the crash, buy low, do it again. Not that hard to believe.