I do my own investing for retirement 401K. I spend a decent amount of time studying on the subject but need a reality check. So for those who have investments in mutual funds/bonds how have they done in 2015 vs year end 2014. Mine are almost exactly the same at this time. Went up very nicely earlier in year but have settled back down. I had what had been a lucrative energy fund and when oil prices went down early in year I sold out and transferred it all to another fund unrelated to oil. Glad I did because that fund is still nose diving.
...about the same as yours. I don't worry about it at all. I'm not smart enough to time the market, so I just invest in things that I think will be around for a long time and wait. I have done fine over the years.
My wife's investments seem to be on a plateau. I can tell this by her reaction when her statements come. = Happy when they are up. I hear it when there i a sharp drop. I was self-employed so I have little invested on the market. My investments are all on 4 wheels. :grin:
I guess im in the same boat , i thought i was the only one, i just added about 30k to mine when i left my job in Oct31 2014 and it's been down ever since. my broker says just wait it out as i wanted to move it out about 4 months ago. im in a pretty safe market so i only lost between 1000-2000 approx! GGRRRRRRR
funny timing here, after 25 years of the little miss and mine (ours) investing I bought 2 buicks and got away with explaining the 72 vert BB is our driveable 430k
I dumped my international funds at the beginning of the year - glad I did or I'd really be in the negative. UticaGeoff
We are of retirement age (wife is but, I'm still working as a Broker) and our investments are pretty diversified. About 1/3 in money markets, 1/3 in long term t-Bills, and 1/3 in the stock market. We gained about 4% overall this year including the dip in August. The thing that saved us is that the stocks we hold are all large company blue chips that pay generous dividends. That way, even when the market is down, the same dividends keep coming in. I'm by no means a market whiz but take advice from those that are much more knowledgeable than I even though I manage our investments without paying a financial adviser.
Relatively flat here too, within +/- 2% in my various accounts. We're in a dip now, making it look worse than it is. I have a fair chunk in oil and energy which is down big time lately. At least they pay about a 4% dividend so they generate income. I figure I won't call it a loss until I sell it at a lower price. I'm hanging on for now, expecting a comeback in the future. Heath & Sciences has done well, balances out the losses in other areas. It's down now too. I'm in it for the long term. Just hope it's mostly still there 5-10 years from now.
I am by far no expert on any of this, I am just a self employed kind of guy but I guess the dip in the Dow Jones along with what you are all saying is why my business has been flat these last few months. When the market is up business is good.
Confident in the election are you JC? I too am hopeful. If it doesn't get better then, I might follow wife's advice and pull out, pay penalty and put cash in big safe. o No: Thanks for the excellent feedback everyone. V8Buick always did have a wealth of knowledgeable people in this arena. Yins are the best :TU:
Not worth a tinker's cuss. I'd have had better luck stuffing a mattress with cash and then waiting for the $20 bills to get old and sell them at a coin show. Wall Street took Main Street on a ride in 2008, and still hasn't paid us back, and nor do they intend to. Someone is making money, and it's no one I know unless they've won a lottery. But I'll bet everyone of those bankers, brokers, CEOs, and CFOs, hasn't been hurting one iota since they skipped out of getting tossed in the hoosegow back in 2009. The party continues.
The big investment houses make money up or down because the money just has to move for them to get a cut. It isn't there money moving around but they do make a profit on the migration from one green field to the next. As for mine, my company went bankrupt in 1999 and I lost almost all of my company stock that was matched to my real dollars in the 401k. Then 9/11/2001 happened and my stocks in the new 401k took a deep dive. Then 2008 happened and any modest gains I'd made were again wiped out. Basically, the entire decade of the 2000s has been a bust for me. It took until 2011 to get back to the numbers I had just before the company stock took a nose dive and I've been maxing out my 401k since 2013 when my daughter graduated college. At this rate, I'll only have to work until I'm 90 to be able to retire.
