Author Topic: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market  (Read 5347 times)

YoungGranny

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I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« 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)


solon

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2020, 01:44:38 PM »
People just need to learn some stoicism, or zen, or something.

bthewalls

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #2 on: April 05, 2020, 02:16:39 PM »
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!

rockstache

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #3 on: April 05, 2020, 02:22:36 PM »
Still here, still carrying on as normal.

bthewalls

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #4 on: April 05, 2020, 02:23:31 PM »
Still here, still carrying on as normal.

so far we are 4 strong! waaaay!

ender

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #5 on: April 05, 2020, 03:20:23 PM »
Trying to time the market is way too much work.

ice_beard

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #6 on: April 05, 2020, 03:27:03 PM »
I'm not selling anything but I'm certainly DCAing more into my taxable account.

bthewalls

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #7 on: April 05, 2020, 03:31:00 PM »
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

MDM

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #8 on: April 05, 2020, 05:13:49 PM »
But it is ok - even a good idea - to engage in some Tax loss harvesting when one exchanges a similar (but not "substantially identical") fund for another.

E.g., Total Stock Market <-> S&P 500.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2020, 05:38:51 PM by MDM »

JLee

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #9 on: April 05, 2020, 05:21:45 PM »
But it is ok - even a good idea - to engage in some 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.

MDM

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #10 on: April 05, 2020, 05:46:57 PM »
But it is ok - even a good idea - to engage in some 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 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.

John Galt incarnate!

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #11 on: April 05, 2020, 05:50:20 PM »
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%.

Citizen-One

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #12 on: April 05, 2020, 06:44:47 PM »
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.

lesmalheurs

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #13 on: April 05, 2020, 06:47:27 PM »
Sooo boring...

I'm in. Still DCAing as usual.

PDXTabs

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #14 on: April 05, 2020, 06:54:43 PM »
I haven't changed anything.

2Birds1Stone

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #15 on: April 05, 2020, 07:51:49 PM »
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


RWD

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #16 on: April 05, 2020, 08:21:57 PM »
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.

RWD

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #17 on: April 05, 2020, 08:40:18 PM »
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.

Retire-Canada

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #18 on: April 05, 2020, 10:06:50 PM »
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.

Radagast

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #19 on: April 05, 2020, 10:36:26 PM »
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.

Abe

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #20 on: April 05, 2020, 10:50:31 PM »
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.

2Birds1Stone

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #21 on: April 05, 2020, 11:35:59 PM »
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.

MDM

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #22 on: April 05, 2020, 11:51:53 PM »
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.

Erma

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #23 on: April 06, 2020, 05:21:32 AM »
Also investing as long as money is available. Unfortunately it is a bit less due to less work.

2Birds1Stone

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #24 on: April 06, 2020, 06:12:05 AM »
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.

YoungGranny

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #25 on: April 06, 2020, 06:23:34 AM »
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.


VaCPA

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #26 on: April 06, 2020, 06:59:18 AM »
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.

des999

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #27 on: April 06, 2020, 07:28:18 AM »
Trying to time the market is way too much work.

this

Stimpy

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #28 on: April 06, 2020, 09:15:45 AM »
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!

wenchsenior

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #29 on: April 06, 2020, 09:37:20 AM »
Same old same old. No change to longstanding DCA plan, no worries.

John Galt incarnate!

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #30 on: April 06, 2020, 10:35:48 AM »
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.

poetdereves

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #31 on: April 06, 2020, 10:50:09 AM »
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.

HotTubes

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #32 on: April 06, 2020, 11:08:13 AM »
"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.

KarefulKactus15

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #33 on: April 06, 2020, 12:51:17 PM »
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.

John Galt incarnate!

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #34 on: April 06, 2020, 12:58:47 PM »
"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."

Edubb20

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #35 on: April 06, 2020, 01:17:03 PM »
Each week, my auto-deposits roll on, I will not change this unless my employment is terminated.

waltworks

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #36 on: April 06, 2020, 04:16:21 PM »
Still plugging in $1500 a week, just like the plan.

-W

George the Pet Goose

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #37 on: April 06, 2020, 07:20:15 PM »
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.

waltworks

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #38 on: April 06, 2020, 08:04:00 PM »
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

itchyfeet

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #39 on: April 06, 2020, 08:49:01 PM »
Another stayer here. And a buyer.

FLAFI

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #40 on: April 06, 2020, 09:34:10 PM »
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. 

terran

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #41 on: April 06, 2020, 09:46:06 PM »
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.

RWD

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #42 on: April 06, 2020, 09:48:46 PM »
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.

talltexan

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #43 on: April 07, 2020, 06:44:11 AM »
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.

wenchsenior

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #44 on: April 07, 2020, 09:11:33 AM »
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.

Retire-Canada

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #45 on: April 07, 2020, 09:23:30 AM »
If I had a time machine I would forsake buy and hold and market time like crazy.

George the Pet Goose

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #46 on: April 07, 2020, 11:02:42 AM »
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





George the Pet Goose

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Re: I solemnly swear to NOT try to time the market
« Reply #47 on: April 07, 2020, 11:13:32 AM »
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.

George the Pet Goose

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  • Married living in the Mountains of California
Another Attempt to post attachments all on the same page- Gains
« Reply #48 on: April 07, 2020, 11:58:45 AM »
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 :)







« Last Edit: April 07, 2020, 12:02:48 PM by George the Pet Goose »

Retire-Canada

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Re: Another Attempt to post attachments all on the same page- Gains
« Reply #49 on: April 07, 2020, 12:01:12 PM »
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."?

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!