Stephen Skory

Above is a graph showing my net worth since January 2007. I have removed the actual dollar values for the bars because I’m ashamed of how poor I am. Or wealthy I am. I’m not telling. But remember that I’m a grad student, not a former CEO of a failed investment bank… you get the idea.

I’ve put two numbers in orange on the graph. If in my richest half month I had one dollar, now I have 68 cents. Put another way, I’m now about two-thirds of my former self, and this took five months. The graph above includes my cash accounts, which haven’t gone down, so my investments have declined even more than a third. Luckily, I don’t need that money any time soon (I have to graduate before that), but it’s a bit depressing.

It’s also an opportunity to buy some really cheap bank stocks and hold them until they recover. Which would more or less cancel out the inevitable tax increases my generation will have to pay to bail out our selfish parents.

At least I can say that I’m ahead of the curve on the grad school thing.