------20th anniversary------ 1) a while ago dow jones industrials dropped 500 points in one day. many people were a bit shocked. well...they ain't see nothing yet. how so? at 12,000 level, a 500 point drop is a 4% move only. in 1987, 2 years after i started investing in stocks, the dow dropped 508 points in ONE day, from 2,200 to 1,700. a whopping 23% drop. hongkong stock market authority did the most stupid thing by closing the market to avoid any adverse effects. all mutual funds having any holding in HK stocks had to stop redemption by investors till the market's re-openning. investors were trapped. they couldn't sell their mutal funds even if they're willing to take a loss. by then i had invested mostly through unit trusts (british term for mutual funds), many of them holding some HK shares. for a whole day i couldn't eat, having totally lost my appetite.