Posted: 7/19/2002 7:42:11 AM EDT
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Feel free to flame me for not paying attention to my personal finances - I'm just not "into" it. I stay up on current events and you'd have to be living in a cave to not know that the economy is down. there - got that out of the way. I'd like suggestions on what to do with my 401k that's been consistently loosing money over the last few months. I have my funds spread between agressive and safe stocks, and some money market stuff. Should I sit tight, take action - what? TIA |
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How old are you, and when do you plan to retire? I'm 40. My 401k is 90% aggressive "higher-risk" stocks, and yes I've been getting hammered recently. But I'm in it for the long haul, so I'm staying put. Tech stocks are low? Good. With each weekly contribution to my 401 I'm hopefully accruing more stocks that are undervalued. When (not if) the market rebounds, I'll hopefully be doing well. How well depends on how good my fund manager is. When I hit 50 I'll start moving more of my funds into "safe" investments. By the time I hit 60, the majority will be there. But if I'm going to retire and live in the manner to which I've become accustomed, I need to risk my funds now and hope I win. YMMV |
| I agree with Kbaker. I'm 44, have a good salary, and am contributing the max to my 401k. I'm putting half into aggressive growth and half into a diversified international fund. The former has plummetted and the latter has been amazingly stable. Now is the time to be buying and not bailing out IMHO. |
| IMHO, it's too late to bail now. Me and 13 1/2 other guys think that the market won't get much lower, so, you would be selling low only to buy higher, later. I'm 50+ and in the market for the long haul for my 401. I've seen the market come and go over the years and it's been important to me to realize that. Don't sweat the valleys too much and don't jump up and down too high when it peaks. |
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I agree with KBaker and CalKid, buy them when they're on sale (like now). As far as Techs being "low" though, the S&P is STILL abit pricey. The avg P/E of S&P500 is 29, that's still just a tad high. Some Techs are still pretty expensive: Microsoft at 50 with P/E of 44 Cisco at 14 with P/E of 93 Intel at 19 with P/E of 73 But others are under the average P/E: IBM at 72 with P/E of 17 In any case, this bear market is creating a firesale on stocks that folks who are 20years from retirement should be buying up. But remember, diversify, diversify, diversify. |
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I'm with the others. If you're still in at this point, don't bail out now. My 401K got hammered bad, I won't say how much but my losses are in the five figures. But I'm over 20 years from retirement so I'm confident it'll bounce back. It always does over the long haul. So lordtrader gonna make a commission or what? [;)] |
| My 401K hasn't made any money lately, but hey, it's a paper loss only as long as they don't sell my shares. It will go back up and in the meantime I'm getting more shares for the money. I'll check my balance in 25 years (I'm 34), and I'll either have money or I won't. I'm not about to worry about it now. Everyone gets scared and pulls out. That just causes it to get worse. Don't touch it and weather the storm. |