Here was his advice on Monday, October 6, 2008 on The Today Show:
“Whatever money you may need for the next five years, please take it out of the stock market right now, this week. I do not believe that you should risk those assets in the stock market right now.”
The market free-fall had already begun after September 19 when this index was still above 1200. Selling two weeks into this crash was like trying to catch a falling knife. The time to bank one's profits had been after a pull-back from the highs over 1500, at the 1400 or even the 1300 level, not after a "mere" 100 point pull-back from 1200 to 1100. By then the time for action had already passed, over 400 points off the highs on the S and P 500.
"I know I have been castigated for having told people to sell stocks to raise money for anything they might need for five years, a solid attempt by me to really warn people who were counting on stocks for retirement and college tuition when we were at Dow 11,000 and Dow 10,300.
The assumption at the time was that things were bad -- like now -- but that it was worth buying and holding and 'riding it out.'
I didn't think so. I thought it was better to sidestep it and then come back when the coast was clear . . .." (source)
He's now laying out what a worst case scenario going forward would look like this time around, apparently in order to be able to say "I told you so" if we have another crash.
