Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit In The Next Global Financial Meltdown, Second Edition

Letting Go Is Hard to Do

We understand that quitting stocks, bonds, and investment real estate is not easy. It’s tough to just give up on investments that we have come to know and love, investments that have provided so well for us in the past—so supportive and so comfortable. It’s almost like giving up on Mom and Dad. These investments have served us so well over the past few decades; how can we just walk away? Everybody invested in stocks, bonds, and real estate, and usually everybody did very well. The world just doesn’t seem right without them. And if leaving Mom and Dad isn’t bad enough, moving to alternative investments may feel like moving to an orphanage. Actually, you can make much more money with alternative investments (see Chapter 7) than you could with stocks, bonds, and real estate in the past, but that will be much harder to do than in the relatively easy glory days of the rising real estate and stock markets. Also, few investors will join you in the alien world of investments that go up when the economy goes down. It just won’t feel the same as the rising bubble economy.

In most economic situations, reading what not to invest in is pretty useless because you probably wouldn’t invest in it anyway. You would invest in typical stock mutual funds and some basic real estate just like everyone else. However, in a bubble economy, what not to invest in can be one of the most important financial decisions you make in your lifetime. That’s because the losses on stock, bonds, ...