Jeff®

I put over 5K in my 401K last year, and every penny of it went into someone else's pocket.

Harpozep

My cousin had 97 grand in a 401K. He borrowed against it to finance his new business.
The 401k's value dropped from 97 grand to 2 grand within a month last November.
Now he owes the bank $. No bailout for him, eh?
That's the new reality.

Old Lar

The stock market is cylical. With a 401K now is the time to invest as over time its value will increas albeit five or ten years down the road. When I was working I did periodic investing all the time. During the early 90's my investments dropped, but by mid 90s the investments took off.

You only lose when you sell. If is is just on paper, that is all it is, a paper loss. Not much help as you watch your portfolio drop 30% or more. This cycle most all my investments dropped which is unlike the 90s when only portions dropped.

There is really no safe harbor today, bonds traditionally a safe harbor, pay maybe 4%, if you are lucky.

Even gold may not be safe. Gold was selling ~%1000/oz several months ago is down about 15-20% today. Silver went from $17/oz is now about $10/oz.
Anything collectable is subject to demand and may be hard to get cash out of it, if you need it now.

c2vette

I was down about 40% at the worst, been investing agressively in GLD options, USO options, EOG options, GE (both calls and puts). Now down about 15% since 2007 peak. Never had to work this hard on my investments, but seeing some light for now.

trfindley

In September 2007 I had $150,000 in the stock accounts.
Today they have $29,000 in them.
I did not follow my rule about selling a stck if it dropped 10% off its high.
I read Investor's Business Daily off and on since 1990, but had a HAZY idea of stock trading.
Last month I bought "The Successful Investor" by Wm. O'Neal, and learned what I was doing wrong >>>>>>not selling a stock when it dropped 10%.

1 thing he teaches is to buy stocks only when the market is going up, and tells how ro determine this. We have had 3 up days this week, but that is not enough yet.

I urge everyone to buy the book from Amazon, and start using it.
For more reading fun, read "How I made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market", by Nicolas Darvas. I have figured out his box system is similar to the flat base technique taught by O'Neal.

What O'Neal doesn't teach is that stock prices depend on analyst earnings estimates, and relies too heavily on past performance.

solman98

Well I decided to move my stuff around. After some were loosing upwards of 50%+, I just moved it into securities and won't make as much as before all this happened, I'll at least be earning around 4%...... Once the market starts to head north again, I'll put it all back to the higher earnings. But I would rather earn a little than to just keep loosing. Plus hard to say what markets will even survive all this.

Cokeybill

I dumped my stock (approx. $140k worth) in Feb.'07. I had seen enough of the Execs getting way too much out of their respective companies. Things were riding too high for what I thought that their companies were worth. Their greed was getting a little too scary for my liking. My advisor told me not to sell out. I said "I think it's time." I put it all in GICs at 3.89%. Glad I made that move. I regained my losses from the 911 crash and decided to not let it happen again. Finally made the right decision for once.

masterchief1112

terrible my college fund has taken a 4K nose dive in the past year.

c2vette

Remember this old thread. I am actually back in the black by a healthy margin now and over the last week have gone from virtually 100% equities to less than 50% to protect my gains. What have I learned? You need to take action, pay attention, do your homework. Buy and hold is long gone. My best gains were the result of active trading. I don't really like that fact, but I will accept it.