he means he shorts the stock market... although it can be difficult to get the borrow when everything is tanking.

I took it as waiting for the bottom and investing his cash, and seeing a big upswing. The real trick is starting at the bottom.

Yeah, that's what I wasn't sure about. Shorting is fine but it's also difficult to time right. And yeah guessing when it's the actual bottom is also not that self evident (at least for me).

So I'm kind of curious to hear any anecdotes from users here profiting in 2008...

By investing in the entire market continuously, and squeezing every spare penny to invest even more when there's blood on the streets.

You don't have to time anything right or pick any winners with this strategy, because you'll invest all the way down and all the way back up. You might not have made money from Jan 1 2008 through Dec 31 2008, but that money would have made a killing subsequently.

Of course if you were out of work in 2008 that is easier said than done.

OTOH If you try to make a killing by shorting, there's an infinite number of ways to end up broke by getting the timing wrong. If you bet everything on picking bottom, you can miss the boat or miss the bottom. Not nearly as risky as shorting, but certainly not as reliable as staying the course.

I never invested in direct stocks until 2008. Markets were going up just before the crash and a investing friend suggested why not buy stocks. But my demat account got delayed and when i received it markets were going down hard. I ended up investing very small amount. But i got nearly 4 times the return(I did wait few years)

Timing is very difficult, I've been told over and over again. I personally think it's easier to time the top rather than the bottom. The reason: the fall is always preceded by lots and lots of people forecasting doom and gloom. I got out of Sun Microsystems stock (and some others) at the end of 1999 for that reason. Sold at $150+. Months later it was at $5. Now, I'm no prognosticator. I was looking to buy a house in the future and knew I needed to convert to cash at some point. So, I was sort of hyper aware of what was going on and at the end of 1999 I just couldn't take it anymore.

I'd love to hear how people timed the upswing from 2008.

Got in close to the bottom with the QQQ in 2009. Chickened out and thought we'd reached a top in 2013 and cashed out. Was sitting in cash for 2 years.

Now I believe we're going down. I'm shorting through options to get some bigger action. 3x from SQQQ not good enough- so buying 6-12 month puts on Cloud companies and QQQ. Didn't get in it at the top - started at about 10% below the top.

Is it bad when I'm thinking of selling some bitcoin in order to take advantage of a volatile stock?

Yes.

Why? Bitcoin is at least as volatile as the most volatile stocks.

Should I have added some sort of sarcasm tag to my comment? It was a joke :).

It was a joke mostly because Bitcoin is legitimately innovative and Linkedin is yet-another-social-media-platform-except-for-Serious-Business. No one gripes about investing in stocks even though they (they being one of the biggest companies) can obviously tank 50% in one year. However, every post even remotely related to cryptocurrency will have, guaranteed, a comment or 10 about how "No one will ever invest in this because it is too volatile." It's just an observation of mine.

Do both