The Dow is down about 450 points right now, almost 4%.
I pulled out a while ago, I guess I’m pretty happy with that choice right now.
don’t talk to me right now… argh
mine is doing fine. thanks for asking
actually just looked at mine… And they are staying perfectly steady.
same here…the only thing that really took a hit is my company stock.
down $2k since 10/31/2007. Still averaging a 5-year rate of return at 16.7%. If assholes like you didn’t pull their stuff out of the market every time they heard something on the news, I would be up or steady for the year.
This is with a 97.3% stock / 2.7% bond mix. This is just an adjustment and the taxes I would have to pay to withdrawal from a 401k would not be worth it in the grand scheme of life. I’ve got at least 25 or 30 more years to work, and that is retiring early, so I’m not worried in the least.
Now talk to me in 6 months when I expect 30 year fixed mortgage rates to be down near 4.8 or 5%… Can’t wait to refinance!
You think they will dip that low? If so I may have to start shopping for my 2nd house a little sooner than I expected to. Now the avg for PA is 5.48% which isn’t too bad.
Yes.
Oops, while I was researching, I see you posted what I was going to post. The current PA 30 year fixed avg. is 5.48% and dropping. I honestly think another poor quarter or two and the rates will drop.
I also see a desire by the lenders to keep their numbers up, so while new mortgages will be fewer, the entire industry will move more toward refinancing and hopefully trying to out do each other with discounted fixed rates, or as discounted as they can get.
Sorry to the OP for hijacking.
edit: so yeah, the dow was down nearly 500 points when it first opened. This was expected based on what went on in markets around the world yesterday. Last tally, the dow is back up to a loss of around 150 points for the day, which still sucks, but is by no means the disastrous sell-off that this thread seemed to imply was happening or should happen. Take some malox and relax. If not, I suggest a firebox, a locking closet, and a trip to your bank / financial adviser.
fine. not touching it. People need to chill the fuck out.
First, I’m not an asshole.
Second, are you suggesting that I should stay in the market regardless of conditions, for the “greater good” ?
Also, my measly retirement savings didn’t touch this market, the real players who put in the sell orders helped bring it down, along with the weak dollar, and the losses on the international scene.
Conversely, if more people would pull their shit when the market is beginning to get over-inflated (ala 14,200 in 2007), then the corrections wouldn’t be as severe.
debatable.
So we know by the 11,000 other threads that you create/post in daily that any sort of “socialism” is bad, so no, I’m not suggesting that. I’m suggesting that people that don’t know wtf they are doing, often do something dumb (pull all of their money out of a 401k that will beat any bank / cd / bond rate of return at the cost of early withdrawal penalties) because they read on yahoo’s front page that the sky is falling.
yeah, yours didn’t and mine wouldn’t. Neither would whitey’s, sonny’s or brad’s, but combined, well yeah it might have a little effect. Remember, this is world wide now to, so while half-a-dozen investors in Pittsburgh might not change shit either way, you have to remember that there are a heck of a lot of investors world-wide.
That is the risk you take. I agree that it has been inflated recently, but the amount that it is / was inflated isn’t cause for panic. Like they say, if you can’t take the heat bro…
But whatever you have to tell yourself to get to sleep at night…
i just pulled mine at, dow might drop to like 10,500 then ill start buying up
I’m not having any trouble sleeping at night, and I didn’t say the sky was falling, nor did I freak out after reading one article on yahoo.
Indicators of a correction have been clear for some time now. The key is to ride the wave as long as possible without riding the crash down, that’s how markets work. It would be stupid to stay in blindly, but that’s what the world has the working class doing with 401k plans. We buy more mutual funds every week or 2, at least once a month, and they get more buys on the market, helping to inflate the beast.
There have to be winners and losers, otherwise we’d all be better off buying T-bills and CDs.
I stay in no-load, no fee funds in my Roth so I can switch it around easily without incurring fees. My 401k doesn’t charge me to change at reasonable intervals. And I don’t claim to be a genius, I would be the first to admit I got lucky by selling at $13,600. I didn’t know exactly what would happen, I just didn’t like the market volatility, housing crisis and a few other factors.
If you think the answer is to just stay in no matter what…maybe you’re the one heeding the advice of poorly written yahoo news articles.
I love the “if you can’t take the heat” argument. It insinuates that taking losses without actively trading my retirement, my future income, is some sort of bold and courageous move. I’m not the one bitching about other people’s choices affecting my returns.
at the sky is falling threads. I love how this TSI person thinks he knows everything about everything, but rides around on a street bike without a helmet on.
Like Sonny said, my 401k is doing fine. Thanks for asking.
the title of the thread, the first sentence in the thread, and the fact that the thread was created leads me to believe otherwise
Different investment strategies then. I’m by no means implying that one should just keep dumping money into a 401k and never pay attention to what is going on. You are right, it’s your retirement and you need to do what you feel is right.
So really, whatever dude. It’s completely my fault for opening the thread because I should have known it would come down to differing opinions.
Mine is OK… but then again I really don’t know too much about my 401k other than I want to invest into it and I have been.
My company stock’s YTD change is -35.7% which is a bitch since I had 50% in that.
So I adjusted my contributions and we’ll see how that works out.
x2
My 401k is down a little (less than 5%), but in reality, meh!?!
If you’re below 40 years old and have a 401k, optimizing it by traversing in and out (at intervals where penalties are not incurred) of fund offerings which leverage stock-heavy emphasis versus cash-emphasis/money-market type instruments can, in the long run, boost overall returns if you time correctly.
But the fact remains that it is quite hard to beat the overall market with that strategy. Mutual funds, by their nature, are designed to risk-leverage at varying levels of risk and a blend of quality instruments is the supposedly proper way to go…or, gasp, even the asset-allocation date funds!
All I’m saying is, essentially, Mr. Market came back from the Great Depression. Unless you’re approaching retirement age and have not moved into more conservative instruments, it’s not cause for panic. Nobody ever made money from panicking! Vigilance and periodic re-balancing can help you, but decimating your retirement account from ill-timed trades can be, more often than not, more damaging than staying the course.
My 401k lost about $250 dollars from October through December. I checked my funds/stocks today and got rid of some of the ones that were doing horribly and moved to some of the stocks/funds that were doing well. I am not about to pull my money out though. I think you need to just sit it out and let it ride. SOme people react to the market way too much and just make things worse.
If you are pulling you $$…you better keep a good eye on the market/you funds. To pull when it is low and put it back in when it is doing good will only result in a huge loss. This is the time to be dumping cash into your investments…invest low sell high.