I met someone recently who told me he is swearing off the stock market for good. I asked him why. He told me that he lost a lot of money in the global financial crisis but he managed to recover all his losses in the ensuing recovery. That is good news, isn't it? Well, apparently, Mr. Market took back some of the gains in the last one year. So, he is still in a nett loss position.
I asked if his investments paid any dividends and he said yes but very little. He said that with the amount of time and effort he put into the stock market, he might as well just leave the money in a fixed deposit and save himself some headache (and heartache).
This person was not a very close friend but for some reason when I meet people, the conversation would steer towards investments and personal finance matters. Anyway, ......