Stock Market Panic?

[mick]

If them 30 something investment advisers are so smart, why the heck are they still working?

[Wayne MD]

They still work because it is greed taking over by the time they make their first buck. How about taking all our investments and turning it over to foreign markets, like Germany, or China? We'd still make money and can wait to see how U.S. comes out of this mess. I'm just guessing at this point of what to do. It's taken over one year to get my lost investments back to even-since the last economy bust.

[edj]

Originally Posted by Gary - K7GLD

Stock market "always comes back"?

Stay in for the long haul, regardless?

IF I had buried my own various "expert advised" investments out in a tin can in my back yard instead, I'd be 80 grand richer today...

You have to remember, these 30 some odd year old "investment experts" so willing and eager to keep YOU in the market for that "long haul", are the SAME ONES making a living off commissions on YOUR investment $$$...

Financial and related political issues NOT an accepted RVing subject? I'll try to remember that next time my fuel bill arrives - or when I consider the cost of a new RV trip - or a new RV....

You are quite correct when you say that some individual investments can be losers. The less diversified one is, the higher the risk of losing it. I don't pay any attention to the "experts" who pitch buying the 'hot' stock. Instead, I invest in various Vanguard index mutual funds to create a good (for me) allocation between equities/bonds/cash. I may not get rich quick by buying the few great stock winners, but I won't lose it quickly either.

[RJay]

Sound financial advice used to be that when you reached age 65 investment holdings should be in bonds and cash, of course that's when the life expectancy was about 72. Today, life expectancy is 80 to 85 years and to have an investment strategy that neglects having growth investments as part of a balanced portfolio runs the risk of out living the retirement funds. Bond investments are just as volatile as stocks and their return, at best, can only be viewed as a hedge on inflation to protect principle.


I have found investment advisers all have solid strategies of how to accomplish a particular retirement objective, however, that strategy always results in picking winners and losers to achieve the objective, and that's where their crystal ball isn't much better than mine. As proof, you only have to visit Morningstar to see how many four or five star rated investments are under-performing.

[SteveLevin]

Originally Posted by dieselclacker

Steve, do "safe havens" still exist in this economy? Do you have suggestions as to where we older folks should stash our cash?

All "doom and gloom" set aside, US Treasuries and top-rated municipal bonds are fairly safe and have decent yields. While they may not be perfect, even in the worst times you would be looking at taking a 5% loss (and that's only been for VERY short periods of time, measured in weeks), as compared to some of the more classic stock funds, which have have spent months in the 30+% discount range and years in the 10+% discount range.

All this said, there's so many variations that it's hard to specify one specific magic solution. There are also much smarter people than me in the universe, that's for sure!

Steve

[Coached]

[moderator edit]
Companies have lots of money, lots and lots of money, they're just afraid to invest it they will eventually invest it and my guess is that most of it will be in the United States ... your currency is too weak at the moment to consider taking it offshore - you'll get clobbered when you try to bring it "back home" because it will almost certainly be much stronger when / if you make that decision? Gold? How do you evaluate its worth at any time? What fundamentals do you apply to it other than fear? What do you do with it ultimately - trade (sell) it for devalued dollars? If you pull out of equities now you "capture" your losses, period ... you go to cash to "wait it out" then you have to decide when to come "back in"?? Tough decisions either way as "market timing" is rarely successful for the average Investor? If you haven't done anything yet then it's probably too late to do much effectively? All the major fund managers have priced as much of this stuff into their funds as possible by now and you're probably safer to continue to trust their judgement and attendant actions at this point? This assumes you're using "top flight" balanced type funds of course ... my opinion is that these balanced funds will probably be the way to go for a long time now due to experiences People had with pure equity funds and the potential for future interest rate hikes? Just a couple of consideations that come to my mind.

[87_Fixr]

Those are good observations, Tiff Inn. When I was forced into retirement late in 2009 I was trying to recover from the 2008 losses, you know, and my company, GM, had been putting my retirement into a balanced fund. It ended the year gaining over 9%, and it was a pleasant surprise after the shellacking of the previous year!

[Conquest102]

Not to worry they can't REPO our RV's they have to finds us first.

[mick]

Conquest , if you see black helicopters, you might want to consider packing up and hitting the road.

[kendall69]

OK here are some hard and fast facts. #1 we will not default because we print money from air. So think about it how and why would we default when we can print a train load of money and sent it to China and be PAID IN FULL.

#2 There is no oil shortage. We have enough oil to last three lifetimes, and by that time we will be running on something yet to be invented.

#3 There is no Global warming. In the 70's it was Global cooling and today they use THE SAME data to say we are in Global Warming. See, that's quite impossible to use the EXACT same data and come up with two polar opposite conclusions.

Everything is politics and power people. This side is no better that that side they both only want to be in charge and will play games with us till they get it - THAT'S IT. The sooner we all wake up the better off we will be.