What was in your portfolio during the 2008-2009 financial crisis?

I wasnt invested at the time since I was still in university but I recall the nervousness and anxiety it caused on many people mainly due to the combination of the depth of the losses (over 50% of S&P500 lost) as well as the length of time (nearly 2 years from late 2007 peak).

I started investing in 2015 so other than March 2020, I've never experience a bear market/recession. Even March of 2020 happened so fast, and my last employment position was so hectic I didnt have the time to appreciate what was happening. I remember coming out of a meeting the morning things really went down, I think it was Monday March 9th, and looking at my phone and seeing notifications saying "NHL season suspended indefinitely", "NCAA March Madness Cancelled", "NYSE markets halted again!"

I remember looking at my phone for the 15 minutes between meetings just staring at the headlines thinking "WTF is happening.." But I never had the time to digest the seriousness of it, and before I knew it, my portfolio was back to par within a month or so and everything seemed fine by summer.

I'll be honest, these days feels A LOT different. Right now feels more like what I'd imagine 2008 would have felt if I had money and retirement on the line. It feels like a slow bludgeoning that seemingly has no end in sight. I'm not taking any money out of my accounts or doing anything stupid; quite the contrary - I am planning for a worst case scenario. History shows the average "bear market" lasts for about 20 months and has an average low point of around 35-40% below ATH's. So I'm starting to hoard a bit more cash, build up a slightly bigger emergency savings, and not making any large unnecessary purchases. For example we planned on re-doing our patio this summer and buying a new shed (est. $8,000 -10,000) but I think we'll hold off on that. Again, worst case scenario - if one of us experiences a job loss or something else severe to our finances and way of life, I'd rather be in a strong healthy position to weather the storm if this drags out like the average Bear Market does.

I had a mix of mutual funds and stocks back then. I had just did a house upgrade 2 years earlier and with the debt waterline around the nostrils, I was too distracted to really pay much attention/respond to the stock market reversion. I recalled that things were somewhat tragic. Since then, I switched out all of the mutual funds that were not equity only index funds and kept all the stocks. Looking back, the outcome was fine.

Majority was in the Canadian Couch Potato E-series mix at TD Waterhouse. An RESP we couldn't move was in some "moderate growth" mutual fund at Scotia. Both got beat up.

It was concerning, but the plan is the plan is the plan. We were still accumulating, and kept the money going in the same way as always. Just like this year - every dollar I've invested for TFSA, RESP, RRSP, and unregistered account has lost some value, but I'll just keep plugging away.

I started working for a big 5 bank in 2007, so in 2008 I pretty much up my contribution rate to 10% of my salary to purchase bank stock. Benefit from the recovery to 2009 where I pretty much bought a house at the bottom where builder was actually willing to discount the price.

I recalled having some investment in eit.un and a Sentry select diversity fund and a few stocks I gone to 0 lol you guys remember tehera diamond?

zzricezz wrote: ↑ I started working for a big 5 bank in 2007, so in 2008 I pretty much up my contribution rate to 10% of my salary to purchase bank stock. Benefit from the recovery to 2009 where I pretty much bought a house at the bottom where builder was actually willing to discount the price.

I recalled having some investment in eit.un and a Sentry select diversity fund and a few stocks I gone to 0 lol you guys remember tehera diamond?

All those bank stocks are worth about 3x today. Makes up for some of the zeros.

Starting MBA, thinking if I will ever have a job and if the tuition is down the drain. Esp after seeing my brother lose his job!

Used to manage my mother’s portfolio back then, and I remember her telling me - not to worry about the stocks, whatever goes down will come up. But worry about getting a job in this market

Basically same stuff as now.

Tend to trade around core positions... boring but trying to tweak portfolio less, especially last several years.

Keeping entertained with options.

Was and still am in blue chip dividend payers ie utilities, telecoms, banks, pipelines and oil/gas stocks. Weathered the storm and took advantage of averaging down on bank stocks.

XIC
IVV
XBB

Very boring

Hold more or less same stocks as we did back then. Only bought one back then - Russel Metals at $9.00 Dropped split corporations and a few other more risky holdings in 2020. Replaced with bargain basement preferreds that recovered very quickly. Having about 40% fixed income in corporate bonds and GICs helped cushion the 08/09 drop. Everything else bounced back just fine.

The 2008 recession was now 14 years ago. I was early in my career and not making as much money, so didn't have a lot of money invested.

But I still remember getting my arse handed to me as I made many errors and mistakes (buying and selling individual stocks, most of RRSP in high-fee mutual funds, etc.). What I learned was that timing the market was hard and I had capital losses that were carried forward as a stark reminder.

My biggest lesson learned? Time in the market > timing the market.

Holdings during the GFC:

RY.TO
TD Life Science and Tech Mutual Fund (US Tech)
RBC Cdn Div Fund
CNQ.TO
GSC.TO

Lessons learned? In the event of a global financial crisis, everything in your portfolio gets hit hard, and some more than others. For instance, junior gold miners and oil companies don't do well in recessions, to put it mildly! Each stock/fund from their peak prices in 2007-2008 to their bottoms in 2009.

TD MF-Tech -41%, RBC MF-Div -41%, RY -52%, CNQ -75%, GSC -83%

The GFC was different for me versus the Dotcom, because for the Dotcom I was only invested in a Balanced MF and RY stock and while the balanced fund dropped a little, RY after having had a bumpy '98-99, took off like a rock in '00 climbed until the GFC. Both the Dotcom and GFC emphasized the importance and value of regularly DCAing. While having your portfolio down -50% sucks, being able to buy for half price is great.

faken wrote: ↑ There's a lot of new investors that have come on board over the last two years in here. I don't think most of them know what a real recession feels like for them. Just thought I'd start a thread on this topic as it looks like we maybe heading into recession territory..

I was mostly invested in mutual funds at the time in a balanced fund.. basically saw 1/2 of it tanked. At the time I was working at one of the big 5 banks and it was kind of crazy seeing people take out 2nd and 3rd mortgages to pay of things..

I wasn't into stocks that much at that time, but for those that have been through that era, what did you and profited from during that period? And yes.. if you are indexing I know it's just a blimp in the timeline.. but I'm talking short term 2-5 years (what specific stocks were bought).

same and same here. But I should have listened to President and PM. good time to buy and good time to invest. did not listen to wise guys but listened to TD investor guys and lost lot of money. They asked me to invest and I did and lost as market began tanking. I had some Cash and RRSP in GIC securities. One account made good money and one almost nothing. 3years wasted in that one.

Lessons learned and never pay attention to TD or even RBC financial guys. Learned to invest and learned about stocks. I was lucky to experiment and withdraw some money in Dec 2019. Then I came back and covid hit. Started putting money in and made 4 times in one year than in last 10 years. covered all losses from 2008 and made bit more.

Today was good day for AC and TRZ and even my mutual funds. So trust yourself and invest. And when you win or lose you are still the man. to take credit or blame. And not afraid of losing money as you try to time the market as someone said above. It works most of the time.
Oh Ya. Forgot about company stocks. Not touched then and now they are in very good shape to cover retirement as I wont touch it for for long time.

Just checked my investment and it is almost or say 99% when it was highest in Feb 1st week. recovered most losses So good day today.

The only losses are in Nasdaq. But now not much worried.