[Bloody Sam Roberts]

If you bought a tech stock at $100.00 per share and it’s now at $4.00, you’re tempted to “wait it out.” Don’t. You’ve made a mistake. Get over it. Take a loss, pick up your marbles and move on to another game.

The chart below would seem to deflate that statement handily.

[JNB]

Did you look at the portion of the chart from the mid 60s to early 80s? Yes, there are long term secular bear markets.

[supercat]

The chart is slightly-mislabeled. It's log-linear, not log-log, since the years are equally spaced.

[revtown]

Its interesting how the chart plateau's at 1000 in the 70's and now we could plateau at 10,000 or so..

[sourcery]

Your chart is misleading, for several reasons:

• It's not adjusted for inflation.
• It's not adjusted for taxes.
• It's "cherry picked" to cover a favorable date range. A chart covering the period from 1720 to 1789 would paint a very different picture.
• Even in your chart, an investor who bought in 1929 would have had to wait 20 years just to break even--not counting trading commissions, taxes, inflation or opportunity costs.
• Trees do not grow to the sky. Stock market prices do not go anywhere, up or down, in a straight line. Every up trend is followed by a down trend, at all time scales. The implications of that are actually negative to your thesis, and should giver everyone cause for significant concern.

[dinodino]

The operative words: "tech stock." Don't compare some scammy .com to a blue chip.

[evilC]

If you bought a tech stock at $100.00 per share and it’s now at $4.00, you’re tempted to “wait it out.” Don’t. You’ve made a mistake. Get over it. Take a loss, pick up your marbles and move on to another game.

The chart below would seem to deflate that statement handily.
[large graphic snipped]

You have to be careful comparing indices to individual stocks. The "bad" stocks get deleted from the index masking the loss (think Enron or our old buddy Salon).

Regarding the $4.00 stocks, the author is probably correct. Whatever the market does those dodos are probably dead. The phrase " ... it will come back" has caused the demise of more than a few portfolios.

[HardStarboard]

Bloody, your comparing microeconomic advice with a macroeconomic chart. Or...apples and oranges.

[bvw]

That's not log-log. It's log versus year.

[bvw]

Although ... it's looks like maybe a log-log, as silly as that would sound might be a picture. 1940 to now looks affine to 1923 to 1930.