The Scary Stock Market

    A lot of people say that working cannot help you make big money, but investment can. I remember the first time I invested my money in something other than deposit was about six to seven years ago when I put some of my money into the fund. It was Franklin Balance Sheet Investment Fund. The result was....... I am not pretty sure but I didn't make a profit form it. After that, I began to buy different funds through systematic investment plan or one-time investment. Some of them really enabled me to earn extra money. However, as everyone knows,  the worldwide financial tsunami in 2008 was a tragedy for many individuals. I was no exception. But luckily, I didn't have much money to invest during that time. Thus, the loss of my property was relatively insignificant. I thought I've learned a lesson from the crisis, but I might haven't.


   Not interested in analyzing the complicated stock market, I blocked myself from investing stocks for years. Many of my relatives and friends like to watch channels that talk about stock all day, and they speculate in stocks as if it's their full-time job. Under their impact, I started to invest in stocks last year. Working brings me regular salary so I was able to put part of my money on stocks. I only invested slight money in the begining, and then more, and then even more after gaining some earnings. Suddenly I found myself caught in a dilemma. More than fifty percent of my wealth is in the stock market now. I couldn't invest more money in it, but I couldn't withdraw form it, either. Recently, the US lost its top-tier "AAA" credit rating from Standard & Poor’s (S&P). Combined with the eurozone debt crisis, my face turned green which was the same as the tumble of stock prices. About two hundred and fifty thousand Taiwan dollars of mine disappeared in this month. In the past if this happened I would become frustrated. Nevertheless, I only felt a little bit depressed for the money loss. I even bought some more stocks in recent days. My aunt told me that while you grow old, you will realize that if you lose money, you can earn it back; there are things other than money more important in our life that you don't have any chance to retrieve if you miss them. I think she was right. So I don't worry about it now. Ummmm........I lied. Maybe I am a little bit worried. So please, God, help us turn the scary stock market from green to red. (In Taiwan, green means the stock price drops. on the contrary, red means it rises.)