Author Topic: Entering market after botched IRA rollover  (Read 1593 times)

pielee2005

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Entering market after botched IRA rollover
« on: December 11, 2017, 09:03:47 AM »
Hey everyone,

I find myself in a pickle and would love some advice.  Per good financial advice, I decided to rollover my higher fee 401k(s) into a Vanguard IRA, and planned to invest in low fee ETFs.

However, during the rollover, I mistakenly thought that the trade was "in kind" meaning that the funds would automatically go into more equities, but instead it was liquidated into a money market account (very dumb oversight but I was moving across country, starting a new job, etc.).

This was in August, and now the market has skyrocketed 15% and looks like it will continue to rise.  This is around $73k and this represents less than 10% of our assets.

What would you do in my situation?  Would you just bite the bullet/eat the loss and just buy back into the market to capture the gains, or would you wait it out?

Thank you community.



terran

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Re: Entering market after botched IRA rollover
« Reply #1 on: December 11, 2017, 09:49:51 AM »
Do you know for a fact that the market will drop back to where it was in August such that you will ever be able to buy back in at the point you sold? I certainly don't.

Vanguard has found that historically investing everything now (lump sum) has beaten investing slowly over time (dollar cost averaging) 67% of the time. Put another way, on average it's better to invest as soon as you can instead of waiting.

Dicey

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Re: Entering market after botched IRA rollover
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2017, 10:21:14 AM »
When your 'stache has two commas,  you'll see this for the blip it is. Fix it and forget it. Put it back, move on with your life. You will be fine in the long term, even if you put the money back at the highest peak of the market.