Jeremy Siegel: Sticking through the shocks
After that weekend, the Primary Reserve Fund broke the buck, and I can remember feeling very strongly that Bernanke and Paulson would have to stand up and basically insure money funds.
It's a $4 trillion market and a major panic there would have totally disrupted the financial markets. I was really anxious. For the first time, I was really saying, "My goodness, we are in a credit meltdown."
... As an advocate for long-term stock investing, that time was, to say the least, a trying period. But it was a big, bad bear market. One of my colleagues told me that someone had called him to say, "I got Siegel's 'Stocks for the Long Run.' I'm throwing out that concept. All the book is good for is a door stop now."
But the truth is you don't have to throw it out. As we see this tremendous recovery taking place, we're reminded that the market gives good returns for those who can stay in through these periodic shocks. It's going to go up and then crash again. So you have perma bears and perma bulls, and every so often they're going to hit it.
NEXT: Chris Whalen: How naïve we were
