401k right now?

[M_Smart007]

Just a little snippet of info to ponder ...

"If you had bought that Friday, you suffered not only through the 1987 crash, but also a 20% bear market decline in 1990, a 48% tumble in 2000-02, a catastrophic 55% drop in 2007-09 and a drop of nearly 20% last year. Despite all of that, the annualized total return, including reinvested dividends, for the Vanguard 500 Index fund over the past 25 years is 8.9%.

If you had invested the $3,000 minimum on October 16, 1987, in your IRA (and thus not had to worry about taxes), your stake would be worth roughly $25,280 today."

[wa3more]

This easy question. Contribute as much as you can while stocks are down 

this opportunity that comes along once in a decade maybe and you will get equities on sale

[VPExecutive]

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@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:

If stocks are going down, you're not getting more for your investment. You're just buying more shares that lose more money. I'm down almost 20% in 2 months. Once the freefall stops, I'll put money back in. Until then, I'd rather hold on to it. Even if I don't buy at the lowest price, I'll still be ahead of what I would have lost if I kept putting money in.

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Shares will go right back to where they were. I just bought a bunch of cruise line stocks.... One of them went from $60 to $9 recently. Pretty sure after Coronavirus is done and over with, people will continue go on cruises and the stock will go back up. There's simply no reason for everyone to have the level of nerves you have about the stock market right now. 

[M_Smart007]

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@VPExecutive wrote:

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@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:

If stocks are going down, you're not getting more for your investment. You're just buying more shares that lose more money. I'm down almost 20% in 2 months. Once the freefall stops, I'll put money back in. Until then, I'd rather hold on to it. Even if I don't buy at the lowest price, I'll still be ahead of what I would have lost if I kept putting money in.

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Shares will go right back to where they were. I just bought a bunch of cruise line stocks.... One of them went from $60 to $9 recently. Pretty sure after Coronavirus is done and over with, people will continue go on cruises and the stock will go back up. There's simply no reason for everyone to have the level of nerves you have about the stock market right now. 

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Man .. That is a deep discount!!!!, and yes ..once this blows over, You are correct about people going back to cruise lines.

[BobbyInCO]

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Shares will go right back to where they were. I just bought a bunch of cruise line stocks.... One of them went from $60 to $9 recently. Pretty sure after Coronavirus is done and over with, people will continue go on cruises and the stock will go back up. There's simply no reason for everyone to have the level of nerves you have about the stock market right now. 

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Must have been Norwegian Cruise Lines? I bought a little of that one as well. They don't pay a dividend and I'm usually attracted to div stocks. I wanted Carnival but not sure they can sustain the dividend after all of this blows over.

[VPExecutive]

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@BobbyInCO wrote:

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Shares will go right back to where they were. I just bought a bunch of cruise line stocks.... One of them went from $60 to $9 recently. Pretty sure after Coronavirus is done and over with, people will continue go on cruises and the stock will go back up. There's simply no reason for everyone to have the level of nerves you have about the stock market right now. 

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Must have been Norwegian Cruise Lines? I bought a little of that one as well. They don't pay a dividend and I'm usually attracted to div stocks. I wanted Carnival but not sure they can sustain the dividend after all of this blows over.

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It was. I'm hoping it goes back to around $45 or so. I think $60 is a result of an overheated economy. 

[iced]

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@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:

If stocks are going down, you're not getting more for your investment. You're just buying more shares that lose more money. I'm down almost 20% in 2 months. Once the freefall stops, I'll put money back in. Until then, I'd rather hold on to it. Even if I don't buy at the lowest price, I'll still be ahead of what I would have lost if I kept putting money in.

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Over the long term, this strategy (timing the market) almost always fails to launch one ahead. As others have said, 401k is for the long haul (decades long), and over the course of 30 years even the contributions in January and early February will come out fine. Plus, with an employer match, there's a risk of losing out on those contributions by halting contributions during a downturn.

If you're playing the short-term game as a day trader, do your thing as you want, but with 401k and retirement plans there's just no gain (and possibly some loss) from not doing a consistent contribution stream unless you're 60+ years old will be drawing from your plan soon.

[Anonymous]

My allocations are conservative, and I just reduced my contribution from 12% to 6% (which still gets me the full employer match.)

I gave notice and am leaving my apartment in the city and moving in with family on Long Island at $0/cost.

I secured full-time remote status at my job, which eliminates commuting costs.

My entire strategy right now is about hoarding $$ to buy my first house in FL when (I think) amazing deals are going to be had this Fall.

[Revelate]

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@M_Smart007 wrote:

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@VPExecutive wrote:

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@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:

If stocks are going down, you're not getting more for your investment. You're just buying more shares that lose more money. I'm down almost 20% in 2 months. Once the freefall stops, I'll put money back in. Until then, I'd rather hold on to it. Even if I don't buy at the lowest price, I'll still be ahead of what I would have lost if I kept putting money in.

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Shares will go right back to where they were. I just bought a bunch of cruise line stocks.... One of them went from $60 to $9 recently. Pretty sure after Coronavirus is done and over with, people will continue go on cruises and the stock will go back up. There's simply no reason for everyone to have the level of nerves you have about the stock market right now. 

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Man .. That is a deep discount!!!!, and yes ..once this blows over, You are correct about people going back to cruise lines.

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I don't know about that; I think it's way too early to tell what happens with society after the coronavirus shock and fear is over with.  I suspect there are going to be some structural changes in the economy and cruise lines are cheap for a reason, they may not recover as I think everyone's aware now they're just floating petrie dishes; as the Great Cornholio once said, run as you may, you cannot escape!

After this it might take a generation or longer to go back to normal, and I view bets on cruise lines as extremely speculative personally.

Anyway back on topic I had halted 401K contributions as one of the companies was talking about marrying me and the 401K there is simply godlike compared to my current one (which is better than ones I've had in the past, I've apparently worked for a lot of bad companies) and as such figured I'd wait till that happened before throwing all available cash at it to max it out this year... but I suspect there's going to be a hiring freeze and at that point I may just start funding it now and try to max it out while the market is still reeling.

[VPExecutive]

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@Revelate wrote:

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@M_Smart007 wrote:

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@VPExecutive wrote:

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@Brian_Earl_Spilner wrote:

If stocks are going down, you're not getting more for your investment. You're just buying more shares that lose more money. I'm down almost 20% in 2 months. Once the freefall stops, I'll put money back in. Until then, I'd rather hold on to it. Even if I don't buy at the lowest price, I'll still be ahead of what I would have lost if I kept putting money in.

---

Shares will go right back to where they were. I just bought a bunch of cruise line stocks.... One of them went from $60 to $9 recently. Pretty sure after Coronavirus is done and over with, people will continue go on cruises and the stock will go back up. There's simply no reason for everyone to have the level of nerves you have about the stock market right now. 

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Man .. That is a deep discount!!!!, and yes ..once this blows over, You are correct about people going back to cruise lines.

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I don't know about that; I think it's way too early to tell what happens with society after the coronavirus shock and fear is over with.  I suspect there are going to be some structural changes in the economy and cruise lines are cheap for a reason, they may not recover as I think everyone's aware now they're just floating petrie dishes; as the Great Cornholio once said, run as you may, you cannot escape!

After this it might take a generation or longer to go back to normal, and I view bets on cruise lines as extremely speculative personally.

Anyway back on topic I had halted 401K contributions as one of the companies was talking about marrying me and the 401K there is simply godlike compared to my current one (which is better than ones I've had in the past, I've apparently worked for a lot of bad companies) and as such figured I'd wait till that happened before throwing all available cash at it to max it out this year... but I suspect there's going to be a hiring freeze and at that point I may just start funding it now and try to max it out while the market is still reeling.

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In a perfect world, I would agree. Unfortunately you do get those who go against what most think and will ride on a cruise ship anyways... Especially those who book out more than a year in advance. I don''t see all the cruiselines just folding.