BHP and Me

Love it or hate it, the share market can test your inner strength.

A blue chip that was supposed to be a sure thing, recently fell from $39 to $27 within five months. Watching this fall and our money diminish a bit was nothing short of scary, frustrating, and emotionally challenging- as we knew we needed to pull funds to purchase a new home we were pursuing! Eek!

But in ‘realising the loss’, we were comforted in knowing a few things first:

1. Time is still on our side. We are young enough to recoup this money with growth in our new home over the same period that BHP may recover, by adding a little value and paying an undervalued price for the home to begin with.
2. Our business was just starting to gain momentum to allow us to earn more than enough to cover this shortfall, after investing in it for a couple years.
3. We understood the risks; we acknowledge the choices we had made; and we calculated the risk and return of a new home with the new business potential vs. the loss we were about to make in the share market.

Had we not had the financial “stomach”, confidence and education behind us, we would have sat still.  We would not have continued with our business, found jobs, missed an opportunity to purchase a sound home in the location we had been looking in for over two years and even left ourselves “stuck in the mud”!

Needless to say, this was not an easy decision, nor should anyone have to be in the situation, but taking a risk and believing in your own purpose and ability, is surely never going to be the wrong way to go. Right?

This can happen at any time when you are an investor and knowing how to handle these situations, make valid decisions, and access the cost benefits is what makes for a good investor.  Even a great one. As Rockefeller would say ….

“Don’t be afraid to give up the good, to go for the great.”