Stock Market Update

It was a rough week in the stock market, faithful readers. My portfolio (I love saying that word) lost some this week, but I'm still in the black. Since my last Stock Market Update, I've purchased more stock - a few days after the last update, I purchased 100 shares of AIG when it was less than sixty cents a share. It, too, lost a bit this week, but overall my investment in AIG has doubled, as has my initial investment in CitiGroup. Since the purchase of both stocks, I've gained 91.39% combined. Not too shabby.

My opening statement was a bit off, faithful readers. I should have said it's been a rough year in the stock market. On Thursday we received our retirement fund statements for the last quarter and the entire year of 2008. It wasn't pretty. When the company president handed them out, I asked him if they had enough red ink to use when they printed them out; he said no, they ran out and had to use black ink. In 2008, I lost one-fourth of my entire retirement fund. Yep -- one-fourth. And the majority of that loss came in the last quarter of the year. It was a good thing our office is on the first floor of the building in case we decided to jump out of the windows. But I don't feel nearly as bad now - I talked to my friend Big Mama yesterday and she said that she lost one-third of her retirement fund last year. I guess neither one of us will be retiring as early as we'd hoped, Big Mama.