The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Investor Alley => Topic started by: YoungGranny on April 03, 2020, 01:42:56 PM
-
There's been a lot of threads here recently that talk about timing the market or moving to a safer allocation. I don't want to knock anyone for doing what is right for them but I wanted to put a counter-thread out for people like me who plan to stay the course. In a world with a lot of panic selling right now, I thought it would be nice to have a forum and community of people who are staying the course. I know I'm not the only one who is a buy-and-hold investor and I know MMM himself believes in that strategy. In my opinion, it's the strategy that is most likely to win in the long-run so JOIN ME with your boring investing :)
Personally, I invest every two weeks on payday. Maxing out my 401k for 2020 and have auto-investment into a taxable Vanguard account. My allocation is 90/10 stocks/bonds and I don't plan on changing it anytime soon. Dividends are automatically reinvested. (Yawn, told ya it was booooring)
-
People just need to learn some stoicism, or zen, or something.
-
YoungGranny count me in too....im buy and hold for the long term because i dont need the money for along time so nothing to loose!
were the last of the MMM dying breed!
-
Still here, still carrying on as normal.
-
Still here, still carrying on as normal.
so far we are 4 strong! waaaay!
-
Trying to time the market is way too much work.
-
I'm not selling anything but I'm certainly DCAing more into my taxable account.
-
Trying to time the market is way too much work.
The more I read the less I want to time the market....buy buy buy
-
But it is ok - even a good idea - to engage in some Tax loss harvesting (https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Tax_loss_harvesting) when one exchanges a similar (but not "substantially identical") fund for another.
E.g., Total Stock Market <-> S&P 500.
-
But it is ok - even a good idea - to engage in some Tax loss harvesting (https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Tax_loss_harvesting) when one exchanges a similar (but not "substantially identical" fund for another).
E.g., Total Stock Market <-> S&P 500.
I should probably research that - I know nothing about this.
-
But it is ok - even a good idea - to engage in some Tax loss harvesting (https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Tax_loss_harvesting) when one exchanges a similar (but not "substantially identical") fund for another.
E.g., Total Stock Market <-> S&P 500.
I should probably research that - I know nothing about this.
Vanguard and Fidelity (maybe Schwab and others also) make it easy to do such an "exchange" (instantaneous swap of one mutual fund for another at the end of the trading day). By definition one is not out of the market at all and thus not subject to market gyrations between selling and buying.
A little care regarding wash sales (https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Wash_sale) may be appropriate, but even if relevant a wash sale involving some small lots shouldn't prevent one from doing a large tax loss harvest.
-
I know I'm not the only one who is a buy-and-hold investor and I know MMM himself believes in that strategy. In my opinion, it's the strategy that is most likely to win in the long-run so JOIN ME with your boring investing :)
Bank of America analyzed the total return of the S&P 500 since 1930.
It is 14,962%
If an investor missed the S&P's 10 best days of each decade their total return would be an unimaginably paltry 91%.
-
Boring investor here too... no market timing, just continuing the old DCAing as always with ETFs when my paycheck comes.
Trying to time the market is a fool's game.
-
Sooo boring...
I'm in. Still DCAing as usual.
-
I haven't changed anything.
-
I know I'm not the only one who is a buy-and-hold investor and I know MMM himself believes in that strategy. In my opinion, it's the strategy that is most likely to win in the long-run so JOIN ME with your boring investing :)
Bank of America analyzed the total return of the S&P 500 since 1930.
It is 14,962%
If an investor missed the S&P's 10 best days of each decade their total return would be an unimaginably paltry 91%.
Source please
-
I know I'm not the only one who is a buy-and-hold investor and I know MMM himself believes in that strategy. In my opinion, it's the strategy that is most likely to win in the long-run so JOIN ME with your boring investing :)
Bank of America analyzed the total return of the S&P 500 since 1930.
It is 14,962%
If an investor missed the S&P's 10 best days of each decade their total return would be an unimaginably paltry 91%.
Source please
I found a few articles with a quick search, one example:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/22/why-long-term-investors-should-never-sell-stocks-in-a-panic.html
That would be missing 90 of the best days. So if I'm thinking about this correctly mathematically [14962 / 91 = (1 + x)^90] that means the average best day missed out on would be about 5.8%, which seems plausible. What is not particularly plausible is missing out on only the gains. If you take money out of the market you are also going to miss some down days as well as up days. But it's pretty crazy to think that so few days could contribute to such a large portion of the overall return.
-
In a world with a lot of panic selling right now, I thought it would be nice to have a forum and community of people who are staying the course.
I have not sold anything I will not either. Even if my wife and I both lose our jobs we can go about 1.5 years without touching our stocks. I'm a little surprised with how little our paper losses have bothered me. We're down about $135k but when I think about how rapidly we gained that amount (~7 months) it's hard to feel particularly attached to the numbers. Especially when we still have so much. Our net worth is up $120k+ over the last two years. Hard to be dissatisfied with that.
-
I'm not making any changes. Buying when I have some $$ free pushing my portfolio back towards my planned AA. My plan was to buy and hold...so shockingly I'm going to buy and hold and buy a bit more.
-
I wish. But the recent drop caused me to reexamine how much cash we actually need on hand to buy a house, so I am market timing some back in.
Good job every one else though! I have been pretty exasperated and disappointed by some of the emotional market timey posts I have seen around here, and I am not sure if those posters have what it takes to match the extreme benefit of long term buying into the market.
-
Not much change here. Im down some large amount but was too lazy to subtract and calculate how much % loss. It’s all meaningless with retirement at 10-15 years away. Also too lazy to do any of the other stuff like rebalancing. I thought I’d care more but this pandemic puts things in perspective. Will just keep doing that once a year. We did transfer some money out of a bond fund since my wife got laid off and we’re going to buy a house in the next year.
-
I know I'm not the only one who is a buy-and-hold investor and I know MMM himself believes in that strategy. In my opinion, it's the strategy that is most likely to win in the long-run so JOIN ME with your boring investing :)
Bank of America analyzed the total return of the S&P 500 since 1930.
It is 14,962%
If an investor missed the S&P's 10 best days of each decade their total return would be an unimaginably paltry 91%.
Source please
I found a few articles with a quick search, one example:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/22/why-long-term-investors-should-never-sell-stocks-in-a-panic.html
That would be missing 90 of the best days. So if I'm thinking about this correctly mathematically [14962 / 91 = (1 + x)^90] that means the average best day missed out on would be about 5.8%, which seems plausible. What is not particularly plausible is missing out on only the gains. If you take money out of the market you are also going to miss some down days as well as up days. But it's pretty crazy to think that so few days could contribute to such a large portion of the overall return.
Exactly, I didn't want to just call out BS......but BS, lol. There is no way 10 days made that difference, and the best days almost always follow the worst days so missing only the best days would be impossible in reality, even if you tried to time the market for pure losses.
Trying to cherry pick data to scare people is fun I guess.
-
If an investor missed the S&P's 10 best days of each decade....
Exactly, I didn't want to just call out BS......but BS, lol. There is no way 10 days made that difference....
You are correct: it wasn't only 10 days total.
-
Also investing as long as money is available. Unfortunately it is a bit less due to less work.
-
If an investor missed the S&P's 10 best days of each decade....
Exactly, I didn't want to just call out BS......but BS, lol. There is no way 10 days made that difference....
You are correct: it wasn't only 10 days total.
Whoops! Thank you. My point still stands though, how do you miss the 90+ best days without missing a huge chunk of the preceding worse days.
-
Exciting to see there are still so many of us DCA-ers! :) I do agree that some tax-loss-harvesting during these times can be beneficial. I did partake in that as well but it did not change my asset allocation nor how much money I had invested, just moved from one low-cost index fund to another.
-
If an investor missed the S&P's 10 best days of each decade....
Exactly, I didn't want to just call out BS......but BS, lol. There is no way 10 days made that difference....
You are correct: it wasn't only 10 days total.
Whoops! Thank you. My point still stands though, how do you miss the 90+ best days without missing a huge chunk of the preceding worse days.
I thought about that, and almost posted it yesterday. People generally aren't always wrong. But I also think the line of thought is a lot of people are pulling out after big drops when they panic. So they probably are missing a lot more good days than bad.
-
Trying to time the market is way too much work.
this
-
I won't say that I won't sell.... BUT so far, my rules say stay the course.... and I highly anticipate them to keep pointing that direction. Buy (and buy more) and hold all the way!
-
Same old same old. No change to longstanding DCA plan, no worries.
-
I know I'm not the only one who is a buy-and-hold investor and I know MMM himself believes in that strategy. In my opinion, it's the strategy that is most likely to win in the long-run so JOIN ME with your boring investing :)
Bank of America analyzed the total return of the S&P 500 since 1930.
It is 14,962%
If an investor missed the S&P's 10 best days of each decade their total return would be an unimaginably paltry 91%.
Source please
CNBC
Why long-term investors should never sell stocks in a panic
PUBLISHED SUN, MAR 22 202011:15 AM EDTUPDATED MON, MAR 23 20208:01 AM EDT
Pippa Stevens
@PIPPASTEVENS13
KEY POINTS
While it might seem counterintuitive to sit back and relax while stocks post swift and steep losses, for investors with longer-term time frames it typically pays to wait it out.
Looking at data going back to 1930, Bank of America found that if an investor missed the S&P 500′s 10 best days in each decade, total returns would be just 91%, strikingly below the 14,962% return for investors who held steady throughout the ups and downs.
-
I’m also continuing to invest as usual. I did start putting in more recently, but it was because of a raise, not because I had superstitions about the future of the market.
-
"Don't just do something, stand there"
attributed to everyone from Bogle to Eisenhower, but I love the quote.
Another forum I am active on is now comprised largely of people who talked about asset allocation, and investment plans, etc., for the 4 years I've been there, only to bail out when the market turned down.
I'm glad I'm not smart enough to do anything but hang on.
Also, and significantly, all the people turning to cash (up to 40x annual expenses) are trusting that inflation will always be low. Even if they don't know it.
-
Im timing I guess.
I changed my weekly contribution amount and also what assets it goes into. Up till now, I was pretty conservative, I switched all stocks for future contribution.
-
"Don't just do something, stand there"
attributed to everyone from Bogle to Eisenhower, but I love the quote.
During a period of marked stock-market turbulence Jack Bogle appeared on a TV show that covered financial matters.
He was asked "What should people do?"
The venerable titan of long-term investing replied "Do nothing."
-
Each week, my auto-deposits roll on, I will not change this unless my employment is terminated.
-
Still plugging in $1500 a week, just like the plan.
-W
-
It feels crazy to not remove your funds when you see a snowstorm ahead. Removed mine the end of Feb, jumped back in 2nd or 3rd week of March for a bit. Been in and out 4x or so since.Started with $8700, the balance right now is a little over $10,100.00.
I am recently unemployed therefore do not have the funds myself to contribute to the Roth or IRA. This seems alot easier.Haven't really experienced any real downs yet it's on the horizon however I am very conservative. I'll sell all the SPY by closing time tomorrow. Missed the window to sell today by 4pm due to an emergency at the house making me forget. This is still new, not habit.
At my age, I prayit isn't too late to create a good size nest egg. Better get to reading the posts about investing now.
-
Getting in and out with small amounts of money and winning is probably the worst thing that could possibly happen to you...
Then again, some people never get it. C'est la vie.
-W
-
Another stayer here. And a buyer.
-
Stayed the course-of course. A bit of tax loss harvesting but the net number of shares increased during the downturn. A Mustachian/ERE lifestyle reduces the sell impulse.
-
I'm going to have to go against the crowd here. Lump sum investing has been shown to outperform DCA 67% of the time, so I won't DCA, I'll be lump sum investing as soon as I have the money, which mostly means a nice chunk going into tax advantaged accounts every month as always.
-
At my age, I prayit isn't too late to create a good size nest egg. Better get to reading the posts about investing now.
At the stage you're at your investment choices are going to matter far less than increasing your savings percentage.
-
I know I'm not the only one who is a buy-and-hold investor and I know MMM himself believes in that strategy. In my opinion, it's the strategy that is most likely to win in the long-run so JOIN ME with your boring investing :)
Bank of America analyzed the total return of the S&P 500 since 1930.
It is 14,962%
If an investor missed the S&P's 10 best days of each decade their total return would be an unimaginably paltry 91%.
Source please
I found a few articles with a quick search, one example:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/22/why-long-term-investors-should-never-sell-stocks-in-a-panic.html
That would be missing 90 of the best days. So if I'm thinking about this correctly mathematically [14962 / 91 = (1 + x)^90] that means the average best day missed out on would be about 5.8%, which seems plausible. What is not particularly plausible is missing out on only the gains. If you take money out of the market you are also going to miss some down days as well as up days. But it's pretty crazy to think that so few days could contribute to such a large portion of the overall return.
Exactly, I didn't want to just call out BS......but BS, lol. There is no way 10 days made that difference, and the best days almost always follow the worst days so missing only the best days would be impossible in reality, even if you tried to time the market for pure losses.
Trying to cherry pick data to scare people is fun I guess.
This is a really excellent point. Healthy markets don't go up 4.6% in one day. Healthy markets have a run of twenty five trading days in which twenty have small increases and five have decreases.
-
It feels crazy to not remove your funds when you see a snowstorm ahead. Removed mine the end of Feb, jumped back in 2nd or 3rd week of March for a bit. Been in and out 4x or so since.Started with $8700, the balance right now is a little over $10,100.00.
I am recently unemployed therefore do not have the funds myself to contribute to the Roth or IRA. This seems alot easier.Haven't really experienced any real downs yet it's on the horizon however I am very conservative. I'll sell all the SPY by closing time tomorrow. Missed the window to sell today by 4pm due to an emergency at the house making me forget. This is still new, not habit.
At my age, I prayit isn't too late to create a good size nest egg. Better get to reading the posts about investing now.
That right there is the problem. People's feelings tend to urge them to do all the wrong things when it comes to investing.
-
If I had a time machine I would forsake buy and hold and market time like crazy.
-
Getting in and out with small amounts of money and winning is probably the worst thing that could possibly happen to you...
Then again, some people never get it. C'est la vie.
-W
LOL thanks. Too funny. Just for others reading, I DO NOT suggest you do anything except contribute to your retirement accounts as I did. Historically, this is the way to go however, there are once in a 100 yr calamities that approach so I did bend to accomodate my retirement account to account for that since it was so clear the Apocolypse was coming whether we liked it or not
This is a Rollover .401k to a Rollover IRA due to being laid off recently.
Edited my personal info out below but here are the attachments showing these numbers from my Fidelity Acct
March- $928.94 Gains (many lost a huge chunk of their portfolios this month)
April 1st- 7th (today)- $721.87 Gains. Sold it all today so who knows when after my reading and research, is a good time to buy back in.
Could be this Thursday, could be some months from now. No worries.
I believe with 4 trades since. Sold all my Stock today, April 7th.
I cannot post much. post. A real pain in the neck as you can see below. this listening to numbers, typing it in then answering questions. Not sure why this is happening
-
It feels crazy to not remove your funds when you see a snowstorm ahead. Removed mine the end of Feb, jumped back in 2nd or 3rd week of March for a bit. Been in and out 4x or so since.Started with $8700, the balance right now is a little over $10,100.00.
I am recently unemployed therefore do not have the funds myself to contribute to the Roth or IRA. This seems alot easier.Haven't really experienced any real downs yet it's on the horizon however I am very conservative. I'll sell all the SPY by closing time tomorrow. Missed the window to sell today by 4pm due to an emergency at the house making me forget. This is still new, not habit.
At my age, I prayit isn't too late to create a good size nest egg. Better get to reading the posts about investing now.
How did you do in March? Here is my statement IF this website allows. Now it's forcing a message saying I have an attachment already and cannot remove it. Nor can I suddenly hear the verification letters to type in and they are unreadable. n Grrr
That right there is the problem. People's feelings tend to urge them to do all the wrong things when it comes to investing.
-
March 1-March 31st- $928.94 Gains
April 1st - April 7th (today) $721.28 Gains
Sold all my SPY today so am not in the market any longer. Never in a hurry to do anything.
Might buy SPY back on Thursday since that is when cash settles (48 hrs for IRA).
Or next month
Or months from them on.
I'll continue my research to learn more & more. Maybe I will have the huge edge many have in trading same day when my balance hits 25k. That's what Fidelity told me. My research appears to verify it.
My goal is: Turn the original starting amt of $8387 to 25k by the end of this yr.
However I am blessed to have made money at all during this rough zombie apocolypse so no worries.
No hurry.
Now lets see if it will allow me to attach both items on the same page. Verification even appears readable to me at the moment and the "listen to the letters" is now not functioning. If anyone knows why I am having these issues, any info would be appreciated. Thanks for tolerating my presence . Happy trading everyone :)
-
My goal is to turn the original amt starting amt of $8387 to 25k by the end of this year.
Why are you posting this is a thread titled "I solemnly swear NOT to try and time the market."?
-
Same- super boring, but we get some variety since we have ~6 deposits monthly.
$1500 on 1st of the month (brokerage)
$1000 on 15th of the month (Roth IRA's)
Then we have both our 401k deposits every other week, calculated to max on last check of the year.
I will admit it was "fun" to see our deposit on the 1st then my wife's 401k deposit on Friday and then see some gains on Monday.
-
My goal is to turn the original amt starting amt of $8387 to 25k by the end of this year.
Why are you posting this is a thread titled "I solemnly swear NOT to try and time the market."?
Isn't that clear? Didn't you bother to read my posts or examine the attachments for validity?
They do not jive with the OP's "solemn oath to never"
Thread needed a little balance eh?
anyone can do the math seeing the dates to figure my gains
Luckily I never took this oath via the title of the thread. That's part of the point
Nothing is that cut & dry as we've learned lately with history NOT being predictable.
None of us has encountered any sort of upheaval the world is enduring now.
Every 100 yrs
Counting all your eggs in one basket betting that history will completely repeat itself by producing gains in the end... might not be wise.
Mindless auto-piloting is great yet sometimes the hurdles in the road were not programmed for the auto-pilot feature
A few deviations along the way by the pilot might be necessary
That's all.
Carry on as you were
-
Exciting to see there are still so many of us DCA-ers! :) ........
FINALLY, we get to see something exciting about DCA and buy and hold :-)
-
Yeah, let us know how your crystal ball (and retirement) are going in another decade, dude.
We get hundreds of people that win once and post about it. 95% never return... presumably because they didn't keep winning. A few win again and come back, then disappear after a win or two... presumably when they start losing.
So the thing to remember is that you're a sort of stereotype here - someone who has (inasmuch as we can tell from the information given) wasted 30 years of their working life not contributing enough/anything to end up with plenty of money, but figures they can make it up by being magically smarter than everyone else. It's not clear to me why a track record of being bad with money convinces people they can market time - maybe it's a Dunning-Kruger thing.
Anyway, if you really want to do it right, post your trades *before you make them* and document everything. If you win over any sustained period of time, I'll freely acknowledge that you're amazing.
-W
-
I sold all my portfolio and bought gold and cruise lines last week!!!
oh wait. nope - thats another thread.
I mostly index fund. I have some shares in individual holdings and took this opportunity to sell some and consolidate into a stock that I thought was a screaming deal. It also happens to be the one i work for and I have read all the reports and understand what they are doing. they'll come out of this just fine and so will the stock. One of those cases where everything was going down and bringing all the prices with it.
90% of my investments are in index funds. the only move I made was to increase my contribution so that my bonus and paycheck contribution will max out this year. I did that move in Feb.
The only other thing I'll be doing is sitting back and watching the market and not making any further changes.
no flag waving for being contrarian here. just buy and hold.
-
Yeah, let us know how your crystal ball (and retirement) are going in another decade, dude.
We get hundreds of people that win once and post about it. 95% never return... presumably because they didn't keep winning. A few win again and come back, then disappear after a win or two... presumably when they start losing.
So the thing to remember is that you're a sort of stereotype here - someone who has (inasmuch as we can tell from the information given) wasted 30 years of their working life not contributing enough/anything to end up with plenty of money, but figures they can make it up by being magically smarter than everyone else. It's not clear to me why a track record of being bad with money convinces people they can market time - maybe it's a Dunning-Kruger thing.
Anyway, if you really want to do it right, post your trades *before you make them* and document everything. If you win over any sustained period of time, I'll freely acknowledge that you're amazing.
-W
That wasn't meant to make you or anyone feel insecure.
Intent was clearly stated to be directed at the title of this thread so there is no confusion.
I've been trading for 4-6wks now in Fidelity
Put downs concerning things you know nothing about don't belong here in an investment forum
Back to the topic. I obliged you below to provide the information regarding trades before they were made.
Clearly i cannot do this as posts on a forum since i just joined. Screenshot below has my acct # blotted out
Software allows just one or maybe more now... attachments
You can see my boo boo in the beginning where my first transaction was reversed ASAP.
Lost $ and the COVID was coming by then, already ravishing other Countries.
1st real transaction on the March 24 or 26th, 2020 (ive forgotten now, see below) t
Bought SPY on March 24-26th I believe ( see below) & traded 5 or so times since
Beginning IRA balance is $8703.35 + Beginning ROTH balance of $508.50= $9211.85
Current Ending balance (as posted already in prior screenshot is $10,340.44
Gains as of today - $1128.59
A sworn oath taken to stay the course would've been a very bad decision for me.
So of course, I would never desire anyone religiously adhere to it.
Unprescedented times so looking to history you won't find times like this in order
to assume history will repeat itself. It cannot, this is all new and unique.
I'd never promote it yet there are others who are day traders making a living.
Not many, jmho.
All of 2019 =No brains and my plane never required needing a real pilot. Remaining on auto-pilot
To believe you have that many people coming in posting proof of their screenshots is a bit of a stretch eh? lets be honest ok
In another post, Ill post my 2nd screenshot of the transactions. please be patient. Photobucket is new for me.
TIMELINE
Feb 20 2020- I rolled over my IRA & Roth IRA to CORE position
Had My First trade & only boo boo!!!
Reversed positions ASAP
lost $
Remained in CORE position for some wks
Back into SPY towards the end of March 2020
Beginning balances-
IRA- $8703.35
Roth IRA- $508.50
-------------------
$9211.85 on Feb 20th
Today's end Balance - $10,340.44 (see my prior post for screenshot)
Gain of: $1128.59
Last SPY trade was today at 4pm (1pm in New York) when I sold it (2% gain)
SPY opened at over 3% (or at least when i awoke this morning it was)
Slowly decreasing w smaller spikes up
Locked in a gain at 2.11%
SPY closed in the red.
Glad I didn't stay the course however I could see the pattern of the dipping
I didn't gain over $300 locking in at 3%
Yet happy with 2%
Honestly, a this point so wet behind the ears, this is very easy imho
Expect another mistake(s) of course... however, no worries.
Thus I cannot support the title of this thread
though do agree, overall, staying the course is the historical way to guarantee success.
The more you trade, imho, the riskier it gets.
Yet sometimes things are SO BAD, it can be risky NOT to change course
-
I sold all my portfolio and bought gold and cruise lines last week!!!
oh wait. nope - thats another thread.
I mostly index fund. I have some shares in individual holdings and took this opportunity to sell some and consolidate into a stock that I thought was a screaming deal. It also happens to be the one i work for and I have read all the reports and understand what they are doing. they'll come out of this just fine and so will the stock. One of those cases where everything was going down and bringing all the prices with it.
90% of my investments are in index funds. the only move I made was to increase my contribution so that my bonus and paycheck contribution will max out this year. I did that move in Feb.
The only other thing I'll be doing is sitting back and watching the market and not making any further changes.
no flag waving for being contrarian here. just buy and hold.
Good for you to have a job at these current times w/a 401k. & increasing the contribution. I was laid off yet currently on unemployment benefits which is a nice bonus. It offers time to learn
-
Good Lord man, leave this thread alone.
I've been timing the market like crazy too but there many many many other threads to post about your market timing.
Its the same thing when the usual passive investor jump in a "market timing" thread and start spewing how market timing never wins, blah blah blah.(most won't but let people try)
Leave this thread alone, Go post your endeavor in another thread.
-
Good Lord man, leave this thread alone.
I've been timing the market like crazy too but there many many many other threads to post about your market timing.
Its the same thing when the usual passive investor jump in a "market timing" thread and start spewing how market timing never wins, blah blah blah.(most won't but let people try)
Leave this thread alone, Go post your endeavor in another thread.
Replying to inquiries from another poster. I don't care if you time the market however I wish you good luck
-
Good for you to have a job at these current times w/a 401k. & increasing the contribution. I was laid off yet currently on unemployment benefits which is a nice bonus. It offers time to learn
you are 50. you had 30 years to invest and yet didn't. now , while you are on unemployment, you suddenly become an investment expert and will get 300% returns in a year and feel all righteous about hitting up a thread where people have had a successful strategy and you are telling them how they are wrong and you are right?
why aren't the hedge funds queuing up to hire you as you are clearly the worlds best?
I must be missing something!!
please tell me what your next move is so I can sell my hundreds of thousands of dollars of investments and follow your lead!!!
(in case its not clear there is a lot of sarcasm written above.) I suggest you actually read about mmm and investing before you preach to those who have.
-
Still here, still carrying on as normal.
Confession time - I am making a change. I'm cancelling my dependent care FSA (because I'm watching my own kid at home). I'll be adding that additional paycheck money to the market.
There's a tendency around here to use the term DCA interchangeably with investing money as it becomes available to me and it's confusing. For the record, I am doing the latter.
-
I'll take that oath. Since mid February I have not sold anything, so that's good. I have rebalanced once. I have redirected money we would have spent going out to eat (!) into Roth IRA contributions. We are doing a refi on the home mortgage to a 10 year fixed at (drumroll) 2.5%. The gov't stimulus check is going straight to the emergency fund. Otherwise, we are doing the same old boring DCA, buy and hold index funds.
-
Personally, I have found this recent stock market craziness to be very educational. I've read for years that market timing is BAD, and I've always been a buy/hold. In the back of my mind, however, there's always been a sneaking suspicion that I'm missing out on possible gains. After all, it makes sense to "buy low and sell high" and how hard can that BE???
So in early/mid March when a number of my friends and family were bailing out of the market in big ways, I did nothing, but wondered if I was being the idiot. Watching my 'stash get smaller and smaller (while theirs, in secure cash holdings, stayed stable) sure felt like stupidity!
I'm sure the craziness isn't done yet, but here's what has happened so far:
One friend sold all his equity holdings in the second week of March, when the Dow was bouncing around in 22,000-23,000 territory. Soon after, the markets crapped out again and the Dow was around 18,000-19,000. I felt alarmed and possibly stupid. But now the Dow is back up in 22,000-23,000 territory, so when is he going to buy back in? Sure, it could drop again, but will he buy? I suspect not. Maybe it will totally crater down to 15,000 or whatever...will he buy, or be afraid that it will continue to drop? What if today is the low and it creeps higher from here on out? Or bounces back and forth for another six months to a year (or more!) before climbing steadily again? His only strategy was to "avoid loss" and he did not think about when to buy back in.
THAT is what has taught me that it's really unlikely you'll win by selling in a panic, even when everyone else does. You just don't know what the LOW is. (and he didn't sell at the top!)
I'm sure some of you are going "no shit, sherlock, that's what we've been SAYING ALL ALONG" but it's different to hear it vs actually watch it play out in real time.
-
can we start a support group, maybe online meetings? market timers anonymous?
just dont buy that first share and you'll not time the market sort of thing?
-
I’m in! I’ll admit I had a panic about a week ago, but I stood with my plan.
What this gave me a good lesson in, though, is having the right allocation and appropriate amount of cash. I still have a few individual stocks from forever ago and the past few weeks made me realize that having too much tied up in the success or failure of ONE company is not right for my risk tolerance.
And it made me realize I want to have a year’s expenses in cash before I FIRE so a random crash doesn’t immediately throw off all my plans.
So I think this has been a good lesson so far 😊
-
I'm sure some of you are going "no shit, sherlock, that's what we've been SAYING ALL ALONG" but it's different to hear it vs actually watch it play out in real time.
That's one of the best things I've read in a long time. Very glad you got to see it for yourself!!
-
I'm sure some of you are going "no shit, sherlock, that's what we've been SAYING ALL ALONG" but it's different to hear it vs actually watch it play out in real time.
That's one of the best things I've read in a long time. Very glad you got to see it for yourself!!
I also got to watch a buddy of mine sell everything as the market was sliding in late-2018. I told him he was being an idiot, and he should just keep buying every 2 weeks. Like me, he’s in his 30s and a few decades from retirement, so there’s no shortage of time for it to recover. He didn’t listen and went all cash and briefly avoided “losses” in December when the market dropped almost enough to end the bull run, but of course didn’t put it back in at the bottom and still hasn’t got back in over a year later because it rocketed back to new highs so quickly. I’m totally ok with not being a market timing genius gambler, I’d rather be the house.
I haven’t touched a single share since the virus market drop, and I’ve kept buying every week (I’m fortunate to still be employed, however DW is out of work, so contributions are down a bit)
-
Personally, I have found this recent stock market craziness to be very educational. I've read for years that market timing is BAD, and I've always been a buy/hold. In the back of my mind, however, there's always been a sneaking suspicion that I'm missing out on possible gains. After all, it makes sense to "buy low and sell high" and how hard can that BE???
So in early/mid March when a number of my friends and family were bailing out of the market in big ways, I did nothing, but wondered if I was being the idiot. Watching my 'stash get smaller and smaller (while theirs, in secure cash holdings, stayed stable) sure felt like stupidity!
I'm sure the craziness isn't done yet, but here's what has happened so far:
One friend sold all his equity holdings in the second week of March, when the Dow was bouncing around in 22,000-23,000 territory. Soon after, the markets crapped out again and the Dow was around 18,000-19,000. I felt alarmed and possibly stupid. But now the Dow is back up in 22,000-23,000 territory, so when is he going to buy back in? Sure, it could drop again, but will he buy? I suspect not. Maybe it will totally crater down to 15,000 or whatever...will he buy, or be afraid that it will continue to drop? What if today is the low and it creeps higher from here on out? Or bounces back and forth for another six months to a year (or more!) before climbing steadily again? His only strategy was to "avoid loss" and he did not think about when to buy back in.
THAT is what has taught me that it's really unlikely you'll win by selling in a panic, even when everyone else does. You just don't know what the LOW is. (and he didn't sell at the top!)
I'm sure some of you are going "no shit, sherlock, that's what we've been SAYING ALL ALONG" but it's different to hear it vs actually watch it play out in real time.
Excellent post.
All the charts in the world cannot tell you what it feels like when you have skin in the game and the market is tearing your carefully laid plans a new one with each plunge lower.
I like to go back to the Investors' Pyramid:
(https://www.mymoneyblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/pyramid_housel.jpg)
If you cannot master the bottom of the pyramid then none of the rest of the upper layers will matter.
Unfortunately we see that, despite their fondness for glibly quoting Warren Buffett when the market pings new highs, most investors are still as stupid as ever (https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/04/07/stock-funds-see-inflows-for-the-first-time-in-6-we.aspx) when it comes to mastering those basics.
I love this thread BTW. A steady and sensible head will get you through any crisis.