Stock market question

[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.