Chart of the stock market 2000- present.

[Certaindeaf]

Indeed. Panic times you draw back the bolt group and settle on in. lol

 

[jbett98]

My retirement plan is a massive heart attack.

 

[Certaindeaf]

My retirement plan is a massive heart attack.

Nap time.. wait.. but what about building pyramids and shiznit? lol

 

[IronMonster]

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-...us-combination-record-debt-and-slowing-growth

 

[Medic!]

Some changes coming? It's interesting to think on such matters.

''Preparedness and survival''

 

[rick benjamin]

I went to seminars, etc. Their information didn't make sense to me.
I remembered my Grandma's advice (s) and applied it to my 401(K) and later my IRA.
401K were choices the company made within Fidelity. A few good out of a mediocre selection.

After looking at the choices, and listing all my favorite picks, I put 10% into each of the top 10.
I recorded the balances and watched the totals from month to month. After six months, the winners were higher than their initial balance. I sold the losers and bought from my favorite choice list. Recorded this too. After another six months, I had a list of stocks, bonds, mutual funds that made money. I looked from time-to-time to confirm it's working to my advantage.

I retired in 2010, rolled out of the company 401K and into a Fidelity IRA. Now I had 3000 investment choices as opposed to 10. Out of the 3000, came up with a new pick list. Sold all my old choices and bought from my new pick list. Time and observation allowed me to come up with some money makers.

I did the same process with my wife's 403(B) Vanguard account. She's happy with it's growth.

Simple process, no magic formula.
My current top choice has appreciated 143% (FBIOX FIDELITY SELECT BIOTECHNOLOGY).
My current low choice has appreciated 56% (RYVFX ROYCE VALUE FUND)

Sure wish I'd remembered and applied Grandma's advice sooner...

 

[Medic!]

It's been an interesting last week. It's Thursday 10/16/14. And the market closed about 16,100. Down 900 or so from the high of just over 10,000.

Actually it makes me feel better. I'm hoping it's the overdue correction. Better than a meltdown!

With Europe talking recession, who knows? Interesting times for sure.

 

[OLDNEWBIE]

When It dropped below 16,000 I did some buying. Unfortunately I was buying a little at around 17,000 too, as I was getting bored waiting for a correction this time.

Hard to maintain a strategy like mine, buying big name companies only on dips! Over the years this "old man style" has worked for me.

The mid-terms, Ebola and if the Fed will keep the rates low is what's driving things now.

Spread your bets and don't through money in you'll need in the next 5 years and it stays a fun distraction.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

You can't lose if you don't play

 

[OLDNEWBIE]

You can't lose if you don't play

Inflation. Find a safe fixed rate that beats inflation today.
Ammo perhaps

 

[OLDNEWBIE]

Housing if careful is a good bet as well today!

 

[Qjay]

Housing is a great bet in the current market, the only trouble with real estate is how long it takes to make money with it.

 

[erudne]

I closed out stocks in mid 2009
when my earnings dropped to 0 I cashed out my IRAs as I don't need to diminish my income to avoid taxes anymore

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

I do not like the stock market, but a bubble would be represented as an immediate and unprecedented spike in value or growth. If you draw a line down the peaks of the graph and the delete the crash caused by 9/11 the market has maintained a consistent and even slowing increase.

 

[SBC97281]

So this thread has been silent for a while. If you are a long term investor and have been dollar cost averaging into a S&P500 or other broad based index fund the last three years have been amazing!

My 401 says it has averaged just over 12% in almost the same time frame.
Who else has been playing the same determined investing pattern over the last three years?

 

[CountryGent]

I know our portfolio has been doing quite well for some time now.

 

[The Heretic]

2015 and well into 2016 were mostly flat for me on average.

oh sure, the market went up, then it went down and so on. on average it was mostly flat - or below 5% growth.

Towards the end of 2016 it started going up - some of that was because of Trump getting elected. Not that he did anything, he wasn't in office - it was just that the market liked the news.

I went to 80/20 equity/bonds from bonds/equity just about the time the market took off.

I did put contributions into the market and they did well because the market did well. Had I stayed in I would have done much better. But I have not lost overall, and I did decent.

Again, the market seems overheated to me, and I watch nervously as to whether the tax bill will pass, which I think is driving some of the market. Employment and earnings drives the rest.

But remember, no equity, whether the stock market or real estate can keep growing at an unsustainable rate forever. Sooner or later the bubble will burst and there will be a correction.

Right now I figure I am about 50/50 equity/bonds in my 401k/IRA/Roth overall - so about where I feel I am not too much at risk while I still have potential for growth. I am maxed out for contributions this year, so not putting any more in except for the Roth which I put $500 a month into automatically.

Next year I am thinking I will hold off for the spring - still thinking there is a correction coming. If not by spring then I may start putting contributions in - my luck is that at that point then the market will crash.

OTOH - if the tax bill doesn't pass and the market does turn down, then if it is next year, I will jump in with both feet - economics 101; buy low, sell high.

My other investment - real estate is doing good. The local market is booming. But prices are highly variable so it is hard to know exactly where my property falls in the market, but it is certainly appreciating. I would say my property is doing a lot better in value than my other investments. I just home real estate is as good when I retire as it is now. If so then I will sell and buy further out where land is much cheaper and build on that.

 

[Argonaut]

Dollars are not the same as they used to be. Obama pumped so much phony ledger money into the system that it has to go someplace. The median San Francisco house is over a million dollars, the inflation numbers are totally rigged, a decent new truck is 70K. Everything just has a larger number on it. I don't think there is much of a bubble when the two primary American investment (real estate and stocks) are both going up at the same time. Wages are starting to show signs of increasing, health care has gone through the roof, A Da Vinci painting that sold a few years ago for 100K brought 450 million, where else are you going to put your money? I would be more concerned if one sector was moving far ahead of another but I don't see that to any great degree now. My real estate value increased over 6% last year but my antique (old) car collection went up closer th 15%. People don't have money to spend on that kind of stuff without being affluent. The figure that always warps my mind is that the highest agricultural cash crop in the world is Coffee. A product that has absolutely no nutritional value. It seems to,me we humans are pretty wealthy today.

 

[IronMonster]

About 2011 I made what I thought was a safe, reasonable move to protect my retirement funds. I cashed out of the market and bought mostly silver but some gold.

Since silver is down by 50% and the S&P is up 250%

I missed out on enough gains to buy a nice home.

That said I sure as hell don't think it would pay to get in the market today. I can't guess when but this inflated, fake money driven "market" will roll over and when it does I think it will be severe.

Hindsight is always a "word for a female dog"

 

[The Heretic]

About 2011 I made what I thought was a safe, reasonable move to protect my retirement funds. I cashed out of the market and bought mostly silver but some gold.

Since silver is down by 50% and the S&P is up 250%

I missed out on enough gains to buy a nice home.

That said I sure as hell don't think it would pay to get in the market today. I can't guess when but this inflated, fake money driven "market" will roll over and when it does I think it will be severe.

Hindsight is always a "word for a female dog"

Yeah - I keep waiting for it to crash.

I fear that just about the time I get tired of missing out on the growth earnings and I get back in, then it will crash.

OTOH - I am in for the long term. My 401K/etc. is mostly for my daughter and I hope to not touch it before she needs it, or touch it very little - so since I could hang on to it and not need to pull anything out, even if there is a crash, then eventually it will come back. On the other other hand - when I get to 70.5 there is the mandatory RMDs and I will need to start pulling out about $20K per year (which I plan to put into CDs, etc.), so I hope that the market would come back by then.

I remember back after the dot com crash I had a little in a 401K - about $12K, which was down from $24K. I some guy who kept calling me (I think it was Morgan Stanley) wanting me to roll it over it into an IRA. I kept telling him no, not going to 'sell' when the price was low.