I had an unfortunate timing with rolling over a previous 401k at the end of the year a few weeks ago. The only way the 401k admin would distribute was to sell into cash and send me a check. It was about $200k, or about 1/4 of my pre-tax dollars (all of which are invested in the indexes / market). So I had 25% of my pre-tax dollars sitting in cash when the market surged during this time.
Logistically, it took a while for the check to make it to me and with the holidays and travel I finally got it last week, right when the Iran conflict ended and the trade deal seemed settled. So basically I've missed out on around 2.5% - 3% of the stocks surging since then.
For now I've deposited it into my current 401k but into bond index, waiting to see if the market can take a dip so I can roll it back into stocks.
I hate timing the market, and really hated the fact I was forced to sell out of stocks into cash just to do the rollover. The exposure of sitting out of the market just for a few weeks highlights how risky it can be to move in / out of stocks and miss some significant increases.
So now I'm forced to decide if I want to immediately roll into stocks from cash / bonds when the market has rallied so much, or wait for a dip over the next few weeks before moving back. I won't sit out for more than a few weeks, but gosh darn it, it's been so frustrating to see the surge while I was forced into cash.
What do you all sense? Would you sit and wait to see what happens for the next few weeks, or would you move it all in now (perhaps at the top? ugh)?