Two-thousand nine was a pretty crazy year for finances. Thanks to a steady job and relatively little stock exposure( by which I mean almost all my investments are stock, but they are not worth that much yet) my day to day living hasn't really been affected by the markets ups and downs. I like the downs because it incentivises me to buy more stock.
Looking back at this time last year, I remember thinking that the market was down and probably going to be on the rise in 2009 (I was right, but it still had 40% drop left in it!) and that I would do better investing all my IRA funds at the beginning of the year. Following that reasoning invested all my IRA contribution for the year in vangaurd's REIT index fund (VGSIX). The results look like they are in my favor, since I bought at 10.07 and now the price is 14.84(thats 47% gain), I'm curious to know, would I have done better with dollar cost averaging? Assuming I bought the same dollar amount on the last market day of each month I would have 44 shares less than I do now(which means $660 less). So it looks like I made a good gamble in that regard.
So what's ahead for 2010? Honestly, I have no farking idea. The only reasonable prediction is that in the long term, the market will rise. Yahoo! Finance has a nice article on the folly of predicting individual stocks for long term sucess. So I'm not going to be doing much prognosticating, but I'll record mine and a few other people predictions here to laugh at next year.
- CNNMoney Predicts that home prices will fall this year. Hurray for me since I may buy a home.
- A CNN quck poll show's most people think stocks will rise, or at least stay flat. Only about 20% expect markets to go down.
- I predict E-readers will make it mainstream this year, if you don't consider them main stream already. B&N is putting serious pressure on Amazon, and other readers are in the works.
- 1stMillionat33 is bullish on gold and bearish to the point of doom saying on the future of the US. He thinks our National debt will be at 13.5 Trillion by years end, right before we implode. As a side note, I don't follow any of his advice, but it is interesting to see a different investing perspective.
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