Laying Down my Domino Piece on Black Friday

The newspaper headlines last Friday hit me hard. It got me worried.

”Massive sell-offs on world stocks: Nikkei, Dow Jones plunges”

I’ve got a small portfolio on stocks, about 9000 USD in worth as of end September. My net gain so far is about 14%. Some of my stocks were gifts from my parents and a godfather, but more than two-thirds of these I’ve accumulated slowly over the last five years.

Ever since I’ve gotten my first stocks certificate (25 shares on Intel), I haven’t sold any of them. Until last Monday though.

I sold about half of my portfolio value in order to raise enough money for a cash downpayment on a condo unit I’m keen on buying this month. I’ve been poring over it for weeks, analyzing my financial situation and cash flow. After consulting my status with a couple of financial experts, I’m convinced that I can manage this project.

Now here’s the thing: After reading the headlines last Friday, did I somehow contribute to the sharp decline on stocks values all over the world? I felt that my action there was like laying down my personal domino piece on the event leading to last Friday’s world headlines. I’m wondering if my stocks selling was part (even a tiny bit) of the “massive sell-offs” being acknowledged around the globe?

The upside of the whole thing is that if I didn’t sell my stocks last Monday, I would have lost about 400$ in value today (talk about a bearish sale!). It’s a measly sum compared to the 1 TRILLION DOLLARS reported be lost in the global stocks market plunge last Friday but 400$ is a lot of money for someone who works in a country with an average annual per capita income of around 800$.

I do hope that the country won’t fall into the same mortgage crisis as to what happened in the US. Otherwise, I’d really be in deep kimchi 4 or 5 years from now. (Fingers crossed…)

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Just an update on my frisbee playing: our team lost 8-6 last weekend. It was, again, a Spartan effort for us. I scored 3 goals, had a couple of picture-perfect catches (but no photos of it, darn!), overstretched my left arm/shoulder (now I understand why some of the guys have medical tape on their upper arms) and cramped my right hamstring again. It was tiring but fun.

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Get a copy of Wedding Essentials 2008, and look for the feature article on Glenn and Janice's wedding. =) I tried looking for a copy at ATC last weekend, but no success so far though.