| The money is gone but you have a lot of qualities, you can learn from this valuable lesson and do better in the future. For example, I know someone who buys companies that have 20 years of consistent profits. He is down 9% this year, but fell far behind people who were making money from technology stocks in the boom times. He only looks at his stocks every 3 months and worries about nothing. In one of the Market Wizards books, an investor said that if he cannot sleep from worrying about his positions, he sells them until he is comfortable. If your company is granting you call options, all your new ones will be at lower prices and they may even lower the strike prices on the old ones to retain good employees.
Try to get investments that are not correlated with the success of your company or industry or where you own property. The boss that hired me 15 years ago told me to save 20% of my take home income and invest it in quality companies with consistent earnings. He later retired at 55.
Cut your costs, pay off your debts and lower your personal overhead, so that you are more resilient if you have to switch jobs or earn less money. Timing the market over the long term is very difficult and it is better to assume you cannot. It has been known for decades that if you miss a couple dozen up days because you were flat or short the market, your returns over decades are much lower.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-missing-out-on-25-days... If you are going to buy stocks or an index like the S&P 500, take a look at 50 years of data and see how bad the top 10 declines were and how long it took for those investments to reach new highs. The stocks I own have gone down 50% previously and I assume they could top that with a 60-70% decline. The worst time it took almost 3 years to get back to new highs. Once you know that about your investments, you can rest easier. Look for chances to buy quality companies so you do well when profits improve. You have all your valuable skills, you know more now and will do better in the future. |