The Big financial stories from the last decade

Now that we are entering the second decade of the millenium and an uncertain investment climate ahead, it is a good time to look back at the good times of the last decade to see what could wait in store for us looking forward. The funny thing is that despite the ill founded idea that the markets were in one of the biggest boom periods in the run up to the Great Recession, the last decade actually had some of the biggest bumps in the road since the 1970's.  A few of them are explained below. 1.  The dotcom bust of 1999  to 2003.  The FTSE UK market lost 53% of its value Conversely, from 2003 until 2007 the same market rose 105% gaining all the lost ground. 2.  The Big Crash part 2.   The FTSE all share market lost 48% of its value from mid 2007 until March 2009 And then it started its climb again from 2009 to 2010.  It actually went up 58% And then came the biggie - The Credit Crunch.  This ended in the loss of Lehman brothers, the bailout of Bears Stern, a run on the Rock (Northern Rock),  and bailouts for most of the worlds main banks.   Iceland had to go cap in hand to Europe and Russia, average UK house prices fell 21% in 9 months and to top it all off Bernie Madoff had arranged the largest investment scam in history. In addition to these financial events, we had 9/11 (2001), the second Iraq War (2003), the Asian tsunami (2004), Hurricane Katrina (2005), Bird Flu and Swine Flu, the rise of China, the birth of Facebook and the iPod, and so on. So despite what you think the future may hold, it is unlikely to have any real impact on the need to invest and save more for our futures.   As the Government in Italy runs up one of the highest deficits in the Western world it will surely reduce the amount of state support it offers to us and force us to make more of our own provisions.   Time to take the reins and start planning.