Stock market question

[mhall]

Wow,thanks Mark!.lol

Hey John I didn't mean you looked old or anything, lol. I just thought you were around mine and Chuck's age. Now that I think about it you do look younger than we do, lamol.

[fisheater]

Your right on the money of what i was thinking-reasoning Mark.I dont know how often i can switch back and forth from hish risk to 100 percent guaranteed at i think 3.25 percent.I hope if i stay theres some rebound and i clean up but i really dont want to take another 900-1000 point drop in the stock market either.My money where its at is better than losing more.Im on the fence.

[fisheater]

Hey John I didn't mean you looked old or anything, lol. I just thought you were around mine and Chuck's age. Now that I think about it you do look younger than we do, lamol.

No offense taken,i was just messin with you.Im a young fart but im wearing this ole body out fast.lol

[mhall]

Your right on the money of what i was thinking-reasoning Mark.I dont know how often i can switch back and forth from hish risk to 100 percent guaranteed at i think 3.25 percent.I hope if i stay theres some rebound and i clean up but i really dont want to take another 900-1000 point drop in the stock market either.My money where its at is better than losing more.Im on the fence.

I hear ya, here at work we can make changes every six months without any cost penalty, it's a neat deal how it's set up.

[know1]

He didn't say a word about pulling his money out of his 401-k only changing how his dollars are being allocated. I can change my allocations every six months if I desire his is probably set up similar. I also totally disagree with your theory. If you are in a bad investment and it continues to tank how without changing it to something else or stopping it will you ever recover that money. Read what you posted and tell me if I'm misunderstanding you, I hope I am. If you are saying you are in a stock that has had poor performance for say a year and your loosing dollars everyday, are you saying stick with it and hope some day it gets better, uuuuhh what??

If you're changing the way new money is going into the account that is one thing. If you're moving money from a riskier fund to a safer one (like a money market fund) that is another.

When you move that money from the riskier fund guess what you've done - you've sold that fund low. It's a lot like pulling money from the 401K in general (other than the penalties you pay).

Now - if you have just decided to change the way that money going into the fund is allocatted, that's not AS BAD in my mind, but still not great.

Think about it, your money is buying the funds when they are low so you're getting a bargain. You don't really want to throw money at high priced funds and sell the low ones, do you?

Now I will agree that if you are pouring money into a fund that continually loses money, it's not a good thing. But bear in mind that 1 year of losses is really not a big deal when you think about the fact that there has never been a 7 year period where the market has lost money. One year my 401K lost about 30% of its value, but I kept putting money in.

Like I said earlier, this advice is a lot different if you are within a year or so of retirement as then you do want to have your money in a safer fund like a money market.

I'm lucky - I've saved 15% into my 401K since the very first day I was eligibble and I could stop contributing now and would have over $1 million at retirement if the market simply follows it's historical track.

[know1]

I will make one edit - I'm talking about mutual funds here and not individual stocks.

I'm not a believer in investing any of your retirement money in individual stocks.

The only time I would consider individual stocks would be if I had extra money (outside of a 401K or retirement plan) to play with that I didn't mind losing. So far, I've never gotten to the point of having that luxury.

[Tyme2fish]

Contribute the MAXIMUM to your retirement account. At 32 you've got almost 3 decades of investment return.

I contributed the maximum I could in my employers 401K, maximum into a separate IRA for myself and wife and retired at age 58 with no debts.

[know1]

Today is a perfect example of why you don't pull money from market or allocate it to somewhere safe when there is a downturn if you still have a fair amount of time until retirement. You miss days where the market goes up 400 points.

[fisheater]

Some good advice from all,Thanks guys.

[fisheater]

Man i wished i would have pulled it out of stocks....

[bassin_bug]

Man i wished i would have pulled it out of stocks....

We paid off all our debts three years ago. Six months later my spouse reached 59-1/2 years of age and wisely pulled all the money out of the 401k (stocks) and put it into an IRA Certificate of Deposit. At the present time it is still earning 5.56% interest and will be for another 14 months. We're satisfied with everything right now and hope this financial storm will have passed before it's time to renew that CD again. I have some other CD's that are paying good interest rates now but they come up for renewal next summer and I wonder how well I will do then.

I heard yesterday that, like Wachovia, SunTrust Bank is teetering on the edge of collapse. My brother did business with SunTrust in Greenville, MS, and his branch was bought by Union Planters Bank in the mid-1990's. In 2005 that branch was bought by Regions Bank. I wonder how stable Regions is at this time. I have not had time to check the DUNS bank rating and it probably wouldn't be correct with all the crap that happening in the banking world at this time.

I guess we'll just have to fasten our seatbelt and hold on; it's going to be a rough ride.