Market Correction Opportunity

This press release posted on the MSNBC site today says something that I have been telling clients and friends for a while now.  That a market correction, especially one as large as we are seeing now, is an opportunity not a problem.  

Here is the salient point from the release: 

"However, a market correction is not something to fear; in the great depression and crash of 89, while the average person experienced troubled times, there were a small number of people who became millionaires during the same time. They went against the tide. While everyone was running away from the market, these people were buying properties at a significant discount."

That is one of the most true statements ever made about investing.  The real opportunities arise when fear and panic are at there highest levels.  People are selling at irrationally low prices and the level-headed opportunistic investors are buying up under-valued commodities (be they real estate or stocks or any investment) only to hold them and sell them when they return to favor for large profits.  

Warren Buffet sums up this philosophy very succinctly: "We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful"

If you think this is a lot of spin and Pollyanna outlook I will make one last observation:  Have you heard of the Kennedy or Rockefeller families?  How about Howard Hughes?  Of course you have...you've heard of at least one of them.  They all made (or drastically increased) their fortunes during the Great Depression.