Stock Markets Exposed

The money we lost in the stock market was money that was never there in the first place?

it was money on paper, the money was never there in the first place right?

Public Comments

1. You haven't lost anything until you sell.
2. Speak for yourself.... I put 65,000 Dec 08 in an IRA that is now worth 28,000 today. So I lost more than half of my hardworking MONEY.
3. Guess you're talking about the comments from analysts or economists. They mean the price of the stocks been increased above worth and then adjusting to the right value. Like selling a 10K car to 20K and then realizing the car's only 10K. So the the car didn't lose it's value but someone lost money.
4. That's like saying you bought a house for $400k, but since it was only really worth $200k you didn't lose any money! Wrong! Your money (or rather the bank's money) was transferred to the seller and he still has it.
5. As Tony said, you lost it alright. The expression "not a loss till you sell" is pretty silly when you think about it.
6. If I put $5000 a year into my retirement savings account for 20 years and now instead of half a million it is worth $75.000 please do not tell me my loss is not real if I plan to retire next year.
7. Where the F#@K do you get YOUR financial savvy... I have lost about ONE MILLION DOLLARS in the past year... I lost a TON on Goldman Sachs... then got hit really hard when Lehman Brothers collapsed.. so don't give ME that bullsh*t that there was never money there in the first place. HOW MUCH MONEY DID YOU LOSE?.. I would be willing to bet you weren't even IN the market when it collapsed.. and playing the market on paper doesn't count.
8. It's all very quantum physics as it all has to do with potential. According to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (actually, in his German it was "inexactness") the more you try to focus in on detail, the less you know for sure. The stock market is very much like the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment. Until you look in the box the cat is BOTH alive and dead. Only by collapsing the wave function by observing it do things become "real". Actually you are half right. ("Do not go to the Elves for advice for they say both yes and no.") From one point of view, that of early investors, they invested a dollar, the potential grew to 10 and then they were wiped out before they could sell or "realize" the potential. How much did they lose, 1 or 10? But on the other hand, from a different perspective (Einstein's relativity) the reason that stock rose to 10 was because someone was willing to pay 10 for it, so they definitely lost 10. The question of course is, where did it go? One can not say that somebody got it, except maybe a few who sold to begin the drop. Where did the rest of it go? It evaporated into nothing as though it never existed. Which, since it was not gold or silver but notes, credit, electronic digits, even the money paid was only a potential, although it represented or stood for (in theory) actual wealth or substance. This is what we get for having a faith-based currency. When faith is strong, it works very well. When faith fails, you've got nothing.