Still, she outmaneuvered the rapacious men who dominated America's 19th money frontier at a time when women were not welcome. Here's the investment insight. Hetty always had plenty of cash on hand. Whenever the stock market went through one of its periodic panics, she had the money to pick up good companies and properties on the cheap. Today, many investors treat cash as trash.
Cash drags down stock market performance.
Yet cash is valuable for the investment options it opens up whenever the market takes a severe downturn. I don't know when a big market crack will happen. It could be next week, six months from now, or in three years. But when it does, buyers with cash will profit handsomely. Cash isn't trash.