Stock market😰

[Michael Drew]

A full 15% for your whole portfolio? You are not diversified enough, and need a bigger percentage of your nest egg in laddered CDs, cash, bonds, TBills, and Blue Chips. It sounds like you are 100% invested in the S&P or growth stocks.

If I were 100% S&P and Growth, I'd be down a lot more. Probably 35% or so.....

I was all cash in Oct, even though my gut told to stay in cash, I took a risk. It didn't pay off, obviously. I'm mostly in the Vanguard Wellington fund. The rest is divided between the Fidelity 500 fund and their banking fund. I was banking on interest rates giving the financial fund a bump.

I'm riding the wave now. Hoping for a bounce to regain some losses, then move it all to cash.

[Lawrence Duckworth]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned fixed annuities yet, they're soooo exciting!!!

[Stan Calow]

. . .
I'm riding the wave now. Hoping for a bounce to regain some losses, then move it all to cash.

Michael, how does holding cash make sense in a high inflation environment? Unless you have an account with very high interest?

[Lawrence Duckworth]

Michael, how does holding cash make sense in a high inflation environment? Unless you have an account with very high interest?

we're all losers Michael..

The S&P 500 index down 20.5%
Nasdaq, down nearly 30%
Dow Jones industrial down 15%

[Gary Ragatz]

we're all losers Michael..

The S&P 500 index down 20.5%
Nasdaq, down nearly 30%
Dow Jones industrial down 15%

Just to keep things in perspective, the S&P is where it was about 16 months ago. Same for the Dow. The Nasdaq is where it was about 21 months ago.

The Dow is 6% higher than it was at its pre-pandemic peak. The S&P about 14% higher. And the Nasdaq about 18% higher.

If you're a buy-and-hold long-term investor, you're doing just fine.

[Lawrence Duckworth]

Just to keep things in perspective, the S&P is where it was about 16 months ago. Same for the Dow. The Nasdaq is where it was about 21 months ago.

The Dow is 6% higher than it was at its pre-pandemic peak. The S&P about 14% higher. And the Nasdaq about 18% higher.

If you're a buy-and-hold long-term investor, you're doing just fine.

spin it up, but ytd we're losers.

[Gary Ragatz]

spin it up, but ytd we're losers.

But since close of trading last Thursday, the S&P and Nasdaq are each up about 1.8%, and the Dow is up more than 2%. I guess we're all winners!

[roger wiegand]

spin it up, but ytd we're losers.

So who cares about YTD? The market will gyrate, as it alway does. You only make yourself crazy by looking at your investments more often than once every 2-3 years. Over the last 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 decades I (and the market overall) have done just fine.

[Alex Zeller]

So who cares about YTD? The market will gyrate, as it alway does. You only make yourself crazy by looking at your investments more often than once every 2-3 years. Over the last 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 decades I (and the market overall) have done just fine.

What I don't get is why someone who doesn't know another person would say they are invested wrong. I agree with you 100%. The market is going to rebound. Those who are in more aggressive investments are going to recover faster and to a higher degree. I'm at least 5 years away from retiring so I really don't care that I'm down. This fall the GOP will control the House and with it congress will be divided. That's usually good for investments. When I'm close to retirement then I'll move my money to less risky investments.

[roger wiegand]

There's a lot of data about what works and what doesn't work in investing, and a trillion dollar industry based on getting people to do the wrong thing. It irks me.

Buying and holding a well-diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds, real estate and commodities in low cost index funds produces gains well matched to the overall market and economy with considerably less risk than any single or small number of investments, including cash which is subject to devastating losses in inflationary times.

Buying during falling markets and selling in rising markets can work OK, not not as well as buy and hold.

Trading on the market gyrations and trying to time the markets is virtually assured to cause you to not make as much money as you could, or to suffer real losses. Just look at actively managed mutual funds-- essentially all of them underperform their respective indexes. So even professional managers backed by tons of inside information and scads of computing power to analyze it fail to do as well as just broadly sampling the market.

People enjoy gambling, it can be fun. Setting aside a chunk of money to play the market with is fine, just know that it will, in all likelihood, cost you. I used to do that-- for a long time I bought Apple when the price dropped to $10 and sold it when it hit 25. Probably did that 6 times. Good fun, and I made money, but I completely missed out on it going from $25 to the equivalent of several thousand. After a few of the stocks I played that way went to zero rather than back up again I decided I had better things to do with my time.

[Tom M King]

Jerome, That sounds like Cisco back in the '90's. That was a good ride!

[Rich Engelhardt]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned fixed annuities yet, they're soooo exciting!!!

LOL! That would be me!
Since I don't understand the market - I avoid direct involvement in the market.
The closest I come to the market is sticking money into an indexed annuity that's tied to the market, but, it offers protection on the principal.

It doesn't make much money - not enough to keep pace with inflation - but - it doesn't lose money, other than to inflation, either.

Not like my experience with variable annuities - those were a disaster.

[Scott Clausen]

There is dollar cost averaging and nothing wrong with that. In fact a lot of people sleep well at night not needing to pay attention to the market swings. If I feel the market is at or near highs I might get rid of a dog and place that as cash along with savings to wait for a drop. I also look in the mirror on a regular basis and repeat "I cannot time the market". I do the best I can and look away.

Kind of surprised nobody has mentioned Bitcoin. With it way down I must admit that I thought about it. At the end of the day I just don't understand what gives it value or what reduces its value. I also don't feel comfortable that a lost password is also a loss of 100% of the investment, talk about a down day at the market.

[Jerome Stanek]

Jerome, That sounds like Cisco back in the '90's. That was a good ride!

It was Revco drug stores bought out by CVS and CVS did the splits. I do get a nice did I do get a nice dividend check 4 times a year.

[Lawrence Duckworth]

So who cares about YTD?. You only make yourself crazy by looking at your investments more often than once every 2-3 years..

Well'p....I guess it's time for me to get up and go check on my Wachovia stocks