told me in September to start buying back in with small increments.

I didn't listen.

I haven't lost a penny. Don't plan to get back in any time soon.

You did not listen and you went with what you believed. I like that. Thats what I do. If I fail it's on me. I don't want to fail because I listened to somebody else.

economy. It was inevitable that this jackass would trash it worse than the others.

I think the worst is yet to come.

Actually, I don't understand this latest little surge at all. I truly think the financial community is a bunch of dolts who don't see stuff coming until they are a mile past it.

I got my ass kicked back in 1987 and 2001. My profit sharing and 401K both took big hits. I started to pay attention. In 2007 I recognized what was happening in the housing market, it did not make sense. It's all about paying Attention.

I didn't like it and pulled most of my money into certificates.

The amount I left out there has rebubbled, but the recent swoon is not materially important to me. Contrast that to 1987, when those with skin in that game got sick, or retired and promptly died.

When the market crashed in 2008 I had all my money and didn't lose a dime. My broker called and
Said I made a smart move. But you could see that we were headed for a crash when they started giving out mortgages to people who had no business getting one. Someone I knew was barely making it financially brought a $475,000 house with no money down with an adjustable rate. The house was foreclosed on in 2009. The house sat unsold effort over 2 years. And the personended up moving back in with their elderly parents.

had access to a lot of information and news all that time.
I still don't understand why more people did not see what was happening, or knew what a bubble can do. There is a lot of readily available information on the history of bubbles.

The minute I heard Bernanke say " the housing crisis is contained to sub par mortgages" I knew what was coming.
As you saw, that were a LOT of cash poor home buyers who were looking to flip houses.
AND the Gov't usually deeply minimizes the extent of a problem until they can't avoid doing so, so "contained" was a giveaway

Then some mutual funds, including mine, said they were gonna "break the dollar rule" which meant there would no longer be a limit how much
you could lose per share of their funds. Used to be they guaranteed a minimum of 1.00 a share value.

We pulled our retirement accounts early spring of 2008.

Moved all my 401k Vanguard funds into a Vanguard stable asset fund. Instead of losing sleep all the time and watching my 401k lose value, I made 2% on the year. I'm happy with that.

But if thats a long term investment I wonder if 2% will be able to keep up with inflation.

freaked you can just move it there for a low interest rate. If you are in the market for the long haul I wouldn't worry about it. Just make sure your investments are performing over time. Over time even w/ all the bullshit the market performs better than the interest account. However if you are close to retirement it would be a cause for concern.

is usually the last to raise their rates. We are at 1.75% so I'm surprised your 401k company isn't offering higher interest rates than that.

Also if you have a lot of money that may open up a better rate (tier) but you have to have a lot of money.

You probably can get better rates than that on your certificates.

...

I had 70% of money in a fund for people retiring around 2020. It was combined equity, bonds and cash.
The geniuses managing the fund lost 5% on a fund specifically designed for people who would not have recovery time.
So at 5% of 70% we lost over a 30th of what we had.
Around 65 grand.

about this is you didn't call and complain all the years that you had gains every quarter.

A 2020 fund is very conservative. 5% loss is actually pretty good compared to all the other mutual funds. The loss was mitigated because of the conservative nature of the fund. If you can't handle the potential of losses you should not be in the market. Of course if you weren't in the market your whole life you would not have that balance that you have today.

You do know, however, that 4 other major investment companies' 2020 funds were essentially flat.
Also, of course, nobody calls when they experience gains! The point of investing is to achieve gains. A fund gaining value and expecting congratulations falls into the category of "What do you want, a cookie?"

It was very drastic, but we lost less than $2k. If we had "kept the faith" we would have lost $150k or more. I want the option to retire in 5 years, I don't have time to rebuild.

...contributing to about 15 years ago, and it hasn't gone up or down more than 2-3% since then. The other is a "stock savings plan" from a company I worked for 20+ years ago. I put zero into it and it has appreciated quite a bit since then (about 500%) It's gone down about 10% in the last 6-8 months, but since it was essentially "free" that doesn't matter.

Everything else, to the chagrin of many financial minds, is in IRAs, CDs, savings and checking accounts. The financial adviser at our bank keeps nagging me to invest differently ("you're giving away money&quot I keep reminding him that we're 70 years old and have no children. It's more important things are that it be safe and I'll be able to get my hands on it right away if we never need it. At our age we're not "investing for the future".

Not the greatest stock market ever but the most volatile. I also had some IRA funds in the bank and decided to move it to a cd. The longest term they would give me was 11 months 2 3/4%.

No such thing as free money. They are on the hook for a bigger payout.

In November, he warned me that he and his firm saw a recession coming. We planned to meet again in February to move my investments to safer ground.

He's worth every penny!

Economists have forecast 10 out of the last 2 recessions.

I left most of my savings with a broker who was a friend of our accountant. She worked for Smith Barney, now Morgan Stanley. I had 500 shares of Apple, which I had bought at $38. They had split twice, so I had 2000 shares. I got a call, many (ten?) years ago from the broker at Morgan Stanley saying "their analyst" said Apple looked shaky, and recommended selling if it dropped below $190. It went to $189, and I said, "whatever." They sold it at $189.

Dumbest move I ever made. What I should have said was, "if a Republican outfit's analyst says something, do the opposite!" So, I got $388,000 minus fees and capital gains taxes, whatever they were at the time. Not bad for an initial $19,000 investment, right? But since following their "analyst's" advice, Apple roared back, split 7 for one, and that initial $19,000 investment today would have been worth $2.2 million (again, minus brokerage fees and capital gains taxes). I probably could have retired on that alone. I told them they were never to touch anything ever again, just send me the monthly statements.

Your advisor is in no legal way bound to help you over himself and his company. One would think there would be an ethical consideration there but ever since the Reagan era and "Greed is Good," ethics have been out of style and practice.

In case everyone has forgotten, the Obama administration tried to implement a fiduciary rule. Of course, all the financial advisors and their companies were immediately up in arms. They took the rule to court and they won - of course. We have a federal bench that has been picked by corporations and the Chamber of Commerce.

https://www.investopedia.com/updates/dol-fiduciary-rule/

They decided many years ago that was the ethical way to do business. They didn't need a law requiring them to do so.

If you believe they truly act in your best interest at all times then you should have taken the $15k. You shouldn't have questioned their motives.

I need to invest some of it obviously but want to wait until Trump is no longer trashing the economy before doing so.

I just keep buying because I'm looking 15-20 years out, I would be far more concerned if I was retiring in the next couple of years though. Even with the recent dips I am still way up the last 10 years and it will eventually climb again, I'm just holding long term and will invest more if it continues to go down, great buying opportunities.