What If You Knew the 2008 Crash Was Coming?

What if you knew the 2008 crash was coming? You wake up on January 1st, 2007, and you remember everything: every crash, every date, every number of the next two years. So you bet against the market. Easy money. Right? Except being early looks exactly like being wrong, and the bank on the other side of your bet is Lehman Brothers. This is Part 1. Part 2: March 16th, 2020. Would you have told Pip? Be honest. Tell us in the comments. Chapters 0:00 Cold open 0:42 The morning you remember 2:10 Selling the top 3:17 Being early 4:38 Lucky guess 5:44 A bet is a promise 6:33 Worst superpower ever 7:32 One date This is a story, not financial advice. "You", Pip, Tuck, Trent and the stranger are fictional, and so is your balance. The dates and market numbers are real: Money notes • Dow -777.68 on Sep 29, 2008; all-time high 14,164.53 on Oct 9, 2007; bottom 6,547.05 on Mar 9, 2009 (about -54%, about $11 trillion lost): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bear_market_of_2007%E2%80%932009 • "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent": no record from Keynes; earliest known source 1986, A. Gary Shilling: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/09/remain-solvent/ • US home prices peaked in 2006 and were about 35% lower by early 2012 (S&P/Case-Shiller): https://press.spglobal.com/2012-05-29-Pace-of-Decline-in-Home-Prices-Moderates-as-the-First-Quarter-of-2012-Ends-According-to-the-S-P-Case-Shiller-Home-Price-Indices • First iPhone, Jun 29, 2007, $499: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(1st_generation) • Michael Burry's bet against housing from 2005: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Burry • Bear Stearns sold to JPMorgan for about $2 a share (Mar 16, 2008), later raised to about $10: https://www.npr.org/2008/03/17/88388277/jp-morgan-snaps-up-bear-stearns-for-2-a-share · https://money.cnn.com/2008/03/24/news/companies/bear/index.htm • Bear Stearns record close $171.51 (Jan 2007): https://www.benzinga.com/m-a/21/03/11374269/this-day-in-market-hist