Dow plunges 1,500 points on Fed economic warning and fear of a 2nd wave of COVID-19.

[Warpy]

10. My grandmother hadn't bought stocks on margin

so she was able to hang onto what she had. She and my mother ate oatmeal three times a day in the worst of the Depression, but they ate and they didn't have to rent rooms in their home. My mother talks about getting one of her first jobs and being able to treat herself to five cent fried egg sandwiches for lunch.

Some of my grandmother's stocks didn't make it, quite a few companies got shaken out and never reopened their doors. However, she was quite comfortable by the time she died in 1954.

No one knows the correct course of action in a real crash until it's all over and people count up what they've got left. My grandmother did OK. People who panicked did not.