don't look at your 401K or your stock portfolios..

[centralsquare]

Yea, I was pleasantly surprised today. Crossing my fingers for next week!!

 

[Abril]

Monday was the third straight gain in the market. The start of a new trend?

 

[centralsquare]

Monday was the third straight gain in the market. The start of a new trend?

Let's hope so!!!

 

[missy]

Fingers crossed! There are a pair of diamond earrings with my name on it waiting for me...
On a serious note though I wouldn't get too optimistic here. I think we have a long way to go before things really get better but every little piece of good news helps!

 

[ksinger]

Monday was the third straight gain in the market. The start of a new trend?

Doubt it. There is no real reason for them to go up.

 

[HollyS]

Monday was the third straight gain in the market. The start of a new trend?

Doubt it. There is no real reason for them to go up.

Ditto. Gains are probably from investors buying up stocks that were shed like burning clothes on the 'bad' days last week. There is no good reason to be optimistic about our economy. No matter what the talking heads might say on any given day, we're treading water. And the water is rising.

 

[centralsquare]

Monday was the third straight gain in the market. The start of a new trend?

Doubt it. There is no real reason for them to go up.

Ditto. Gains are probably from investors buying up stocks that were shed like burning clothes on the 'bad' days last week. There is no good reason to be optimistic about our economy. No matter what the talking heads might say on any given day, we're treading water. And the water is rising.

Yea, I think it's going to be a bumpy road over the next few months (years).

 

[Abril]

Tuesday was a down day. So we put in about a thousand. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Dow- 419
S&P - 53
Naz-131

 

[centralsquare]

Let the yo-yo begin...

 

[Dancing Fire]

blood bath on Wall Street

 

[TooPatient]

I work for stockbrokers

They are both old enough to have been around and seen things. Their parents lived through the great depression. Needless to say, it is NOT a pleasant day around here.

 

[Black Jade]

Stop watching it. You will pull your money out out of nervousness and miss gains when it goes up again. That's what a lot of our friends did in 2008 and we have our money back again even counting the craziness this year, while they missed out.
You should diversify for safety but actually, the stock market is very safe, even counting 1929, 1988 and 2008 if you had left your money in there since 1925 you would returns that you can't equal with any other investment.
On the cheerful side--gold is going down--maybe jewelry will be affordable again...

 

[missy]

Stop watching it. You will pull your money out out of nervousness and miss gains when it goes up again. That's what a lot of our friends did in 2008 and we have our money back again even counting the craziness this year, while they missed out.
You should diversify for safety but actually, the stock market is very safe, even counting 1929, 1988 and 2008 if you had left your money in there since 1925 you would returns that you can't equal with any other investment.
On the cheerful side--gold is going down--maybe jewelry will be affordable again...

This is what I am doing. No need to watch it go up and down and down and up and down etc. The only important thing is that it will eventually (I hope) go up. So just peruse PS in the extra time you have while you are not watching the stock market. A much better use of your time for sure.

 

[canuk-gal]

HI:

Investments--WOT are those?
cheers--Sharon

 

[ksinger]

Nothing went up, but we didn't go down too much. I had just cashed out on some bond funds - too soon it seems, but at least I cashed out while they were high, and having cash doesn't seem too bad right now. My gold funds are still hanging tough, although tomorrow maybe not. We'll see. Stocks - meh. It's a dang rollercoaster for sure, but what can you do? Right now our extra money seems to serve better by being directed at a house pay-off. Just two more years. Light at the end of the tunnel....

 

[JewelFreak]

I took my profit the day before the slide, thank heaven. Sold out of everything. When it looks like stuff is on the upswing again I'll buy back in & pick up more for the same total expense. (I hope!) The stock market operates in its own dimension, no relation to earthly phenomena, I think; it's nutty. Actually I write "took profit" with a sneer -- my 401K is a fraction of itself 4 yrs ago -- any profit is pretty relative. Boo hoo.

 

[partgypsy]

I'm 20 + years from retirement and I can't afford to take money in and out depending on what the stock market does. There's a saying you shouldn't invest in what you don't understand, then I shouldn't invest in stocks at all because they don't make sense to me. Seriously, there could be all kinds of bad stuff, but it wasn't as bad as predicted, and stocks go up, or the other way around. I don't really understand why the stock market does it's thing, but I'm betting over time (next 20 years) it will go up.

I did shift my allocation, probably about 2 years ago when things were really crazy. I would love to hedge a little more but only know enough to make myself dangerous.

They say you should look at your stocks every 6 months to a year to re-adjust, no more. If you are not an active trader and are checking more often than that, then it's probably a sign your allocation is too risky for your comfort.

 

[fleur-de-lis]

They say you should look at your stocks every 6 months to a year to re-adjust, no more. If you are not an active trader and are checking more often than that, then it's probably a sign your allocation is too risky for your comfort.

Alas, they say you should take a look at your stocks every six months to re-adjust, but they do it every 6/1000000th of a second.

Their way makes them billions. The way they say you should do it has left most reg'lar folks' portfolios flat for more than a decade.




Meanwhile, my diamonds have outperformed the stock market....

 

[missy]

They say you should look at your stocks every 6 months to a year to re-adjust, no more. If you are not an active trader and are checking more often than that, then it's probably a sign your allocation is too risky for your comfort.

Alas, they say you should take a look at your stocks every six months to re-adjust, but they do it every 6/1000000th of a second.

Their way makes them billions. The way they say you should do it has left most reg'lar folks' portfolios flat for more than a decade.




Meanwhile, my diamonds have outperformed the stock market....

I think the most sensible method lies somewhere in between. Not every second and not every 6 months but perhaps check on your portfolio once a week (but in general not changing anything) always making the smartest investments you can of course and knowing you are in it for the long haul. We tweak things as necessary throughout the year.

I agree that the stock market may not be the best investment for some people as you have to be comfortable with risk to some degree. But any investment has risk associated with it and it is up to each person to decide what kind of risk they can live with. I am a pretty risk adverse person (my dh says I am the most risk adverse person he knows) and we have disagreed on how to allocate our funds in the past for sure. We always reach a compromise that we feel good about however I know that he wishes he (and our investment brokers) had listened to me before the recession when I wanted to pay off our NYC mortgage in full and they wanted to leave that money in the stock market. I wish I could say being right under those circumstances felt good but I definitely wish I was wrong in that case (as we didn't do what I had wanted to do). Hindsight is 20/20 though and it all worked out OK and our mortgage in NY is paid in full now.

Truth be told *I* think the very best investment is your home(s). I bought my previous homes always with the intent to live there and enjoy and while I did just that they went up in value and when we sold we made a nice return on that "investment". The key IMO is to buy the home you love (that you can afford ofc) and it always works out...as long as you are not looking to sell for a good while.

There are exceptions of course but in general I do feel that a home is your very best investment in terms of quality of life and making a nice profit if you should sell in the future. Of course where you live does dictate how much of a profit you can make so I am just speaking about my area specifically as I do not know enough about other areas. If you buy in a desirable location though you should be fine.

Anyway let's just hold tight and hope for the best. Fingers crossed that things will turn around. It has been a tough few years.

 

[partgypsy]

Well, stock markets can be a friend or not. My great grandfather liked stocks and bought into them early and did buy and hold, and did significantly better than "flat" by the time he died. In this day and age things are a lot less predictable. I'm sure that the wheelers and dealers will find ways to boost their profit margin, even if it is at the expense of others, but I also don't feel they will willingly share that info with others. Most studies, looking at the average investor say buy and hold works better than shifting in and out. But then again I'm probably farther away from retirement than most of you so the amounts I am "gambling" with are not nearly as nerve wracking as some of you. But even my FIL who is retired I believe has around 50% in his retirement savings in stocks, which to me seems alot.

 

[partgypsy]

Yes, investing in my home is one thing I feel "good" about. It's tangible. It gives me a place to live, I can improve my quality of life and potential equity by improving it, and can be something, once sold, give you either cash or can be invested into another place to live. I don't think we will can lose out with our home. Because of where it is located estimates of how much we can rent it for are 150% of what we are paying for mortgage+taxes. if we moved out and rented it we would be making money (not that we are going to do that).

 

[missy]

even my FIL who is retired I believe has around 50% in his retirement savings in stocks, which to me seems alot.

That is an awful lot when you are retired. I cannot remember the rule of thumb our investment brokers gave us regarding the different stages where you are in life and the percentage of money in different investments but I am sure that having 50% in stocks is high when you are in the retired stage of life. Of course, as Kenny always points out, people vary but still, that does seem like high risk at that stage. But I guess it depends on how much money he can afford to lose so maybe it is fine for him.

 

[Abril]

Lost a little over $83K this past week, but it's only a small percent of our investable assets. We still have 20+ years until retirement, so we're staying the course. Are stocks risky? Yep. But with great risk comes great returns. If anything, we're going to buy more stocks while they're relatively cheap. This too shall pass and it's nowhere near as scary as late 2008-early 2009.

 

[centralsquare]

It's weeks like this one when I'm glad to be far away from retirement!