Money Matters
bmo88
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Retirement Investments & the down market
Uhhh, it's killing me. I am (foolishly) checking my accounts about once a week and despite putting money in monthly, the balance keeps going down. I am looking at about $4,000 in losses over the last 4 months and it's so painful.
I keep telling myself I am in the for the long haul and that it will rebound, but it doesn't make me feel any better at the moment. I really hope the market turns around in the next few months...but I am not optimistic 
What's your strategy? Are you staying in and waiting it out? Adding more? Withdrawing funds?
Re: Retirement Investments & the down market
I'm staying in and waiting it out. No point in taking the loss and I'm confident that the funds I'm in will rebound when the market improves. Plus most of them still pay dividends based on share count, so basically my dividends are buying more shares now than they would otherwise. I also have 20+ years until retirement.
However, I've got Roth IRA contributions sitting and waiting for the "bottom". I don't expect to be able to hit the exact bottom, but I'll get close enough.
Some economists are saying that stocks are highly over-valued right now, as much as 80%. This means there are likely more corrections coming. I do not think we are done seeing the market tumble due to this overvaluation, but also due to other factors like China, oil, other world issues (terrorism and weather troubles), and issues like our government's debt.
It has always been conventional investing wisdom that over time, assets increase in value and that one can expect an average rate of return of 10-12% in the stock market if one is in it for the long haul.
But, looking at the housing bubble. it's proof that highly-inflated assets will pop and come down. Many people bought at the height of the bubble and got upside down pretty quickly on their homes. Others bought in the middle of the bubble's deflation. Some of them got upside down too. Others just won't recoup what they paid for the home for a long time, or ever. But, then there are others who bought at the very bottom of the bubble's descent and they did the best.
I haven't been in stocks since July 2015 when I sold all my mutual funds roughly 3 weeks before that rocky stock market day we had. At first I had them parked in my money market. And, now I have them there and other places (ETFs, not stocks or bonds). Since then, I have made a return of 4.1% and while it's not much, I haven't lost anything.
I plan on also reevaluating things in months ahead, but to stick it out in my current investments until I think the market has regained balance.
Just my perspective, though. Investing is a personal endeavor. Ultimately, we all/each have to be comfortable with our decisions. For all we know, an EMP could wipe out our financial system for 18 months and we'd all lose everything anyway.
A little off topic but, with a previous company I worked with (ACS), I heavily invested in their employee stock program. I used to check their stock price multiple times a day...more out of boredom. One day, the value had shot up about 18% overnight. Very unusual and I was thinking, "Whoa! Something happened!"
I googled my employer to see what was going on, lol. Apparently, two of the companies in the S&P 500 had merged, which left a spot open. And ACS was chosen to take that spot and be added into the S&P 500. It was a lovely "cha-ching" moment. I hope you all start having some of those moments soon!