Comments on: 401k is losing money – crash and burn

By: Brad

Brad — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:48:13 +0000

I know when I am sitting here watching almost everything in my 401k and other small stock holdings tank, my first reaction is sell! My I gotta get grip on myself. I am a few years from retirement and I never want to “buy high and sell low”. I am sticking to my plan. Thanks for another good read.

By: No Debt Plan

No Debt Plan — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:22:35 +0000

@Andy: My initial reaction is to flat out tell you you are wrong… however, it does depend on your investment horizon.

What you are suggesting is timing the market. Right now the market is down. You want to buy when down, sell when up, right? Not the opposite. Your gut tells you to sell low and buy high. Sticking to an investment plan is critical, regardless of the ups and downs of the market.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 19:28:23 +0000

I just reviewed by 401K and based on some back of the enevelope caluclations (which I wrote about) feel that it may not be a bad idea to reduce your 401K investments for now and get back in when the market stablizes. Investing in stocks is tough nowadays.

By: Frugal Vet Tech

Frugal Vet Tech — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:00:19 +0000

I like the turtle picture!

By: No Debt Plan

No Debt Plan — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:19:13 +0000

The plus side of losing $20k is that you had $20k to lose My 401k is just a few thousand, so the downs don’t hurt as much.

Long time horizon means you have time to let it recover…

By: My 401(k) Is Losing Money and I Don’t Care | One Caveman's Financial Journey

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:00:50 +0000

[...] 401k is losing money – crash and burn [...]

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:36:32 +0000

I’m increasing my 401k contribution. This is a gift horse opportunity to buy stocks on the cheap. We may never again in our lifetime see the DOW under 10,000, and it’s reasonable to say that within 5 or 7 years, it will be at 20,000, and we’ll be kicking ourselves for not buying more at such a low cost.

By: hank

hank — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 05:08:27 +0000

2 parts -

@Scott – if you don’t have any more control over it (can you still reallocate it at all, or just no contributions?) I’d certainly look into rolling it over to a ROTH or Traditional IRA to get more movement on it. I’d chat with someone on any of the “live chat” options offered by the big boys in the industry.

@GLBLGuy – I wrote the same thing in my post today. I’ve lost 23% of my investment as well, but staying the course is my plan also. I think of it “glass half full mentality” and know that I may be losing out now, but I’ve got many years ahead of me and I’m buying good funds at 1/4th the price I was buying them earlier in the year.

Stay the course I say also, panic is one of the worst investment mistakes if you’ve still got a long way to go…

By: glblguy

glblguy — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 01:18:21 +0000

@Scott – Scott, I am honestly not sure. Since you own shares in one plan, I would suspect when you roll,the convert the investments to cash then do the roll-over and re-allocate into your new funds. That’s just a guess though. That’s a question I would take to your 401k adviser or a retirement professional. That could potentially cost you big time if you made the wrong decision.

@thebaglady – I just KNEW I was going to do that. I knew the difference, and darned if I didn’t make the mistake anyway. Oh well…corrected and thanks for catching that.

By: thebaglady

thebaglady — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:20:03 +0000

Great article. Glad you’re staying the course. Anyway, one little thing is that it’s the tortoise and the hare. Hair means what’s on your head, and hare is the bunny.