Fast forward to 2008 as the housing bubble went bust, the stock market came unglued, and millions of investors watched in horror as their stocks plummeted — and their hopes and dreams went up in smoke.  Looking at a key market index of that period, stocks fell a whopping 38%.  But many investors did far worse, losing half or more of their value.

There were days when these typical investors walked into their workplace, at least those fortunate enough to have jobs, and during their workday, the S&P 500 dropped 400 points.  Which, said another way, goes like this.  As they were driving home after that hard days work, many had lost multiple times their days wages in their investment portfolio.

What’s that phrase, “not bad for a days work?”  Let’s revise that to “real bad for a days work.”

Virtually everyone was affected, and I’m not here to tell you I ran the 2008 gauntlet unscathed.  So why should you listen to me?

Because by that time, twenty-one years later, I was a far different kind of investor.  Unrecognizable, actually, from that hapless chap back then on Black Monday, 1987.

I wasn’t part of the audience at the boxing match this time around.  I was fighting in the ring. I was proactively minimizing my losses, thus preserving and raising cash, which I could then invest in well researched stocks that were selling at ridiculously low firehouse sale prices.

The crash of 2008 presented incredible opportunities for those who knew how to seize them.  So it was during these dark days that I made some of my best investments ever and ultimately increased the value of my portfolio by 2 1/2 times.

It was a far cry from the last go around.  I wasn’t the same 98 pound weakling getting stock market sand kicked in my face at the beach.

Here’s an example of one of those opportunities I seized on in those dark days — a stock — which I’m going to reveal to you in a minute, so you can go check my facts for yourself. This stock tripled in value in eight months — going from $10 to $30 a share.

Here’s what that means to you.  Had you invested $10,000 in this company, your investment would have been worth $30,000 just eight months later.  But it gets better.

I bought in at $13 a share.  And because of that low price, it was paying me a 20% annual dividend.  It’s still paying me that dividend today.  And at that dividend rate, you will double your money in just five years — on the dividends alone — without the stock ever going up.

But like I said, it did go up, and has gone up even more since then.  Your original investment of $10,000 would be worth $50,000 as of this writing.  Plus, add in three years of annual dividends of $6000 for $56,000 in three years.  That’s what I call “not bad for a days work.”

I promised you the stock name, so here it is.  The stock is called Mark West Energy Partners—symbol MWE.  Go check it out (or you can just look at the chart below).

This is what investment success looks like.

Mark West Energy Stock