Vanguard's John Bogle dies at 89. Father of the index fund, he brought investing to the masses

[customerserviceguy]

10. Two reasons

One, it was going down quite rapidly. Two, I could see that Trump was starting a trade war with China, and I didn't see the market getting any better because of that.

Clearly, I was wrong about the latter point, and I wanted to make sure I still had something besides Social Security and my meager pension (worked there only eight years, and it won't start until Nov 2020) to fall back on.

I had a tiny account on the side that I'd use for "fun money" betting for years, but I liquidated that when I retired two years ago. It wasn't even worth a thousand bucks, which was the amount I was solidly putting into my 401K during seven of those eight years, between my contributions and my employer's match. It wasn't making squat for interest, but at least it was growing by a grand a month.

I wanted to avoid having a month where I'd give up $1K of creature comforts (hey, I could have spent like a drunken sailor if I wanted to!) , and seeing the account be the same as it was the month before. That was the same thing as watching the damned thing go down a grand, only in this case, I didn't have a job shoveling $1000 back into the account in that month. It was easy to feel panic.

You did find the right fund, and while it may well have gotten an 8% return for three years, I wasn't in there for the two of those years that it did the best. You can't buy past results.

In any case, I'm completely done with gambling in the market in any form. Not even a "fun money" account.