The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

The DJIA, Wall Street's biggest financial index, dropped 700 more points today, closing at 8500+ points.  This is the lowest the Dow has been since May, 2003's post-9/11 market slump.  The Dow has fallen over 2000 points in a week's time.

Is it time to assume crash position?  Guess the "bailout" didn't work, eh, George?  What do those of you who have money, especially retirement accounts (IRA, 401k, etc) in the market plan to do to protect your long-term investments?

Fuck everything else, This is my biggest concern today. I really had everything well planed for the next 13 years to retire fully at 55.  I'm concerned.........Deeply concerned. What can you do? One hand says sell..........But to Whom? And the other says to stay and it will bounce back. What goes down will bounce back up. I've lost about 1/3 of my investments as of yesterday. Hopefully this will bottom out soon and start rebounding. The trickle down of this is really going to be scary. Millions of Jobs will be effected. I'm not sure its really sunk in yet .........Some really hard times are ahead people. :|

Unfortunately the best thing to do is to stay with it at this time.

Let's say you say "fuck it" and withdraw your entire 401k plan and get a check (is that even possible to do?). You put it in your wallet or in your safe at home or literally underneath the mattress.

But let's say then you want to re-invest in a 401k plan - are you good enough to know which stocks to buy and when to do this? Probably not, so we're all really screwed for the most part. My Economy professor calls this "Market Timing". If you can tell when the best time for you to go back in is, then God be with you (and luck be with you too). It's more of a gamble to do this than the alternative, which is do nothing.

If you were planning on retiring in 13 months I would be worried.  13 years is a long time.  The Dow will be a 20,000 by then.

I agree. ^^^^   :|  :-[

This actually is very plausible. Brian - the $860B Bailout (remember they tacked on an extra amount), from my understanding, hasn't even been used yet - they are figuring out how to use it now. And, you won't see immediate results most likely - it will take time.

This is just like the Dolphins re-building - ups and downs, but for the Dolphins to go back to the Super Bowl, it's going to take some time to accomplish that.

We are still takin git in the ass for awhile on this.

Fuck Football...........THATS the kind of postive thinking I dig right now!  Your words to god ears brother..........But I'm still pretty concerned right about now.

...and just wait, in 2011, we have another crisis to deal with called Social Security. Someone (McCain or Obama) is going to have to weigh the possibility of increasing the retirement age up a couple of years, or to increase income tax to keep the SSN program afloat (By 2015-2020, the rate of money retirees will receive from SSN will be less than 100% of the money put in to the program....scary stuff here too).

Don't panic.  You've already lost the value, so pulling it out now would not necessarily help.......unless this is just the beginning.    I moved investments to safer areas a month ago.  That has helped some, but the difference in losses between a moderate portfolio and an mod/aggressive portfolio is only about 5%.
 
The DOW is under 9000 for the first time in 5 years.   Obviously, I don't know what will happen, but I hope we are approaching the bottom.   

Hoodie is right.  Since most of us aren't retiring, history shows us that the safe bet is to stay where we are and ride out the storm.

We are talking 13 years. 

Remember black Monday?  1987 Dow had record drop.  Where was the dow 13 years later?

Remember the huge sell off after  9/11/01?  The stock market bounced back.

Hell even the great depression lasted less than 13 years. 

All good advice above^^^^

I just get worried when the Market dropping 700 points is like an unbelievable act a week ago.........and now its becoming pretty much the Norm. Its like Gas for $3.40.  Can you imagine people 2 years ago saying..........Hey I got a great deal on Gas today for only $3.40 a gallon!!?  :-\

No doubt long term that it will rebound.  But, the bailout was supposed to increase investor confidence and get money flowing back into the market, and the exact opposite has happened.

Pulling cash out of 401k is not an option.  you pay 10% in penalties for withdrawing before 65 and then get taxed 35+% - its a big big mistake.  Like Jim, I moved my funds into less-risky areas to mitigate losses.  The question is - when do you reinvest?

I have no doubt that the right thing to do is wait it out, but the market is driven by the masses, and the masses are panicking.

Everything has a bottom, so hopefully it will hit it very soon and we can deal with the repercussions as it makes its climb back up.

You can pull out of the market without pulling out of the 401k.  Just move to a CD/Money market fund. 

If you have more than 10 years until retirement you should be in mostly in stocks and get more conservative as you get closer to retirement.  But trying to time the market is gambling. 

Of course you can, and some people do have all their retirement money in CDs and other FDIC insured accounts.  You never lose money and it is nice and safe.  You lose big time to inflation, but if that lets you sleep at night it can be the right choice.   

you gotta buy gold!!

Yes it is possible... but you pay a hefty upfront penalty, plus you owe taxes on the entire amount.  I've moved most of the money in my 401k to bond managed funds, so it'll stabalize. 

Someone is channeling Ron Paul.

  What ticks me off was I kicked the tires of pulling mine & my wife's 401K out of the market when it hit 14k.

he's the ONLY presidential candidate who knew the root cause of the problem AND how to fix it properly

he nailed it squarely too .. he predicted the housing bubble crash and the credit crisis pretty much verbatim .. but he got made fun of by the republican party because he was the only voice of reason in those primary debates

I'm all for Ron Paul and his domestic policies - but weren't there investigations and hearings about this years ago? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPSDnGMzIdo

Can we discuss the content of this video and not the source?  If it's wrong, which it could be, then lets talk about that.

While you're debunking that ^^^ video, can you also debunk, or provide balance for, this video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&NR

Thanks.

I saw a report some time ago, where Clinton (as president) warned against some of the problems and tried to get Congress to act. He had very little support on either side of the isle.

The current problem has clearly been building for a decade or more, with neither Democrats nor Republicans willing to do anything about it.

One thing, though, the warning signs have increased substantially over the years and for the vast majority of that period, there has been a Republican controlled Congress (and a Republican president - but the president doesn't pass legislation). That's where the majority of the fault lies, IMHO, in the Congress. VERY few, of either party, seem to have pushed much to do anything about, despite the increased warning signs. The Republicans get the majority of the blame simply because they were in the majority.

It's interesting at some level that both the Republican administration and the Democratic one (8 years) before that warned against the problems, but at no point (to the best of my knowledge) did either party in Congress act on it. Sure, you can probably find a few individuals on either side of the isle, but in substantial numbers, no, neither party did squat.

Should the Republicans get the majority of the blame just because they had the majority -- and the presidency for the past 8 years?

no, both republicans and democrats deserve equal blame.

Patience young grasshopper. You do realize things take time to work, right?

One thing to see as encouraging is that oil is headed towards $80 a barrel.  It was something like $140 a barrel this summer.  This will start to level off gas and home heating.  We're paying $2.99 a gallon in Maine now and it's been on a steady decline.

Remember that our economy is driven by the consumer.  If the price of oil continues to drop, the rising cost of food will stem off - it was going up due to transportation reasons.  If the general cost of living comes back down, people have more free money to put back into the system.  At some point I would think we would see the housing market hit bottom.  Once that happens we can start to head back up.

I hope.

QFT. 

Isn't he the one who signed the legislation that started this snowball rolling?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsynspIqAoE&

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPSDnGMzIdo&NR=1

I voted twice for Clinton but he started this mess and Democrats have been defending it every since.  No one on the Democratic side will stand up and say they screwed up but they did and continue to do so even blaming Republicans.  Republicans have a lot of screwed up issues but this housing crisis, and hence our economy, is driven from this one Democratic economic plan.


From the New York Times in 1999

http://www.topix.com/us/democrat/2008/09/new-york-times-clinton-adminstration-pressured-fannie-mae

New York Times - Clinton Adminstration Pressured Fannie Mae
September 30, 1999

In a move that could help increase home ownership rates among minorities and low-income consumers, the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks and other lenders.

The action, which will begin as a pilot program involving 24 banks in 15 markets -- including the New York metropolitan region -- will encourage those banks to extend home mortgages to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie Mae officials say they hope to make it a nationwide program by next spring.

Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

This is even much more detailed fromn the New York Times.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE7DB153EF933A0575AC0A96F958260

this made it sound like barney frank single handedly blocked the legislation .. or the democrats for that matter in 2003 ..

of course the republicans controlled the house in 2003 so they could have passed this bill even if every single democrat voted no .. and they didn't

not that that matters really .. i think everyone and their mother is to blame ..

fannie mae and freddie mac shoudln't have ever been formed to begin with

Down another 500+ today.  :-\  Hope it makes a nice comeback this afternoon.  :|

It's currently sitting at -350.  It was down as far as 700 again..... then gained it all back, then went down another 500 like you said. 

I love how you use YouTube as citing proof of your points.  I also love how quickly you guys derailed a post about the hard economic times into a political debate.  Awesome.

Unfortunately the massive mistakes by both parties and Clinton's and Bush's administrations combined with the unbelievable greed of their friends in Wall St have lead us here. It is impossible to try and work through this current economic downturn with addressing the things that put us here. As a famous quote says " People get the government they deserve". We put these peope in office and now we are paying for their hubris and our voter apathy.

Dow getting positive number nows, still not out of the woods, but much better than where they were earlier today

Agree^^^^^

No Party byitself is responsible for this mess..........although the last 8 years didn't help.  ::)

Thank you.  I'm glad you understand how links to congressional hearings and news reports are just as powerful as newpaper articles. 

Here's a May 5, 2006, letter that was signed by 20 Senators including John McCain, and succinctly describes the problem and what effect it might have if things went south...

(http://www.powerlineblog.com/letter_050506c.gif)

I'm keeping all of my money in my mattress now.