stocks & mutual funds are a long term investment... this is a buy year if you ask me... every election year stocks take a beating... with that being said, it would be a good time to buy for the long term. IMO.

 

oh yeah, forgot to mention... since the stock bubble burst a few years back I've been buying into 1 fund I have and have had great sucess with it. bought as low as $7, now in the mid $13's... peaked earlier this year @ 16, I'm still adding to it.

long term....

 

Yeah yeah yeah I Know I know I know and I know I've talked about this before and I'm sorry for bringing this up again. It's just that lately all of these statements look more like BILLS rather than savings accounts. [:@]

 

first read this cartoon book:

http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Guide-.../dp/0062731025



then read this 'classic' by a guy who did indeed make millions himself:

http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyT...471295639.html

 

im curious to what my account will be up to this year. i started a loaded roth ira 2 weeks ago and put in the maximum for 2007. are those the kind of mutual funds you are talking about, because i was under the impression when i put the money in that it was a safe invesment?!?!

mayfair, did you buy them a while ago kinda high without knowing things were going to get bad and now since everything is so low your profits are being tooken away? or are you actually losing money from your princable?

(excuse me, im just getting into this and trying to soap like a sponge)

 

Naah, I didn't just get into this, I've been saving for years. I paid off the taxes on my Roth probably 10 or so years ago. After I paid off my house, I just started sending my mortgage payment into various funds hopeing to be able to retire as soon as possible. My goal was 50. I'm no longer optomistic that that is going ot happen.

 

I put 15% into a 401k thru my shop. The company matches 5%. I did have a pension from work, but about 4 years ago they filed bankruptcy (corporate), and when said an done the only thing that changed is the name on the door and my pension gone (froze). Two years before all this happened they offered us the 401k without a match. Me being one of the few took them up on the offer. I wound up trading my pension for a 5% company match. Good deal[&:]. Anyway, my plan of retiring at 53 with 30 and out is a distant memory but I am ahead of the others at the shop. My 401k is taking a beating to but I am content to keep sending in the money and ridin' her all the way to the gutter![:@] I know that when everything turns around it will increase quicker and better than before because I will have alot more shares. I just hope it turns around before the account is empty! Anyway, if you want/need a bigger home, in my opinion, if I found a really good deal I would probably buy the house instead of investments. I wouldn't give up on investments totally, but if you can swing it, a new home is cheaper now than when the economy is booming and your livin' on social security. Good luck to ya'

 

Depends on what you bought in your IRA nick. You can invest it in mutual funds, certifictates of deposit, and the like.. What did you get? look on your statement.. My 401K and Roth have been taking a beating too and piling up biglosses the past two quarters. I'm not worried about it I've got 33 moreyears to save..Plenty of time to build it up,can understand Mayfair's concern though. That other was my life savings for a newhouse.ReallyI have no business at all investing that in high riskmutual fundsseeing as I plan onbuilding in about a year. If I lose a huge chunk it's gonna suck but keeping it on CD's was not an option with crap 2% returns that don't even pace inflation.. I've kept that money on 5% 6 month cd's for the last two or three years slowly building it. I cashed it out the first of march and they offered me 2.3%!! I could kick myself for not investing when oil was $60 a barrel two years ago and I pondered doing it but never seriously thought it would get as rediculous as it is now.. Damn, if only... These days it seems like anymore if you're not making 8 or 10% you'relosing out toinflation.The phony goverment calculatedinflation (called "core inflation")report excludes gasoline and food prices!!

 

It's no doubt a tough time to be in the market. I rely on a AIG financial advisor, a guy that is in his senior years, and has seen alot of bumps in the road. I went in for a meeting not long ago and expressed my concerns about my portfolio. In so many words or less he asked me a few questions such as, do I feel that the US has a economy that will ride this out and correct itself, of will the counrty go bankrupt and have to be bailed out by Mexico, Canada and other European countries. Do I remember other historic corrections such as the dot.com corrections in 2000?

I want to say that the maket historicly rises and then falls into what I call a correction. Of course everyone fears a crash like what happened during the Great Depression. But even then, the US pulled itself out of that era.

During these turbulant market times, having a well deversified portfolio helps ride out the ups and downs. Sure I'm down more that I want it to be, but I still make my contributions into my SEP. I feel like I'm buying at prices seen last year or further back.

I'm 51, and still have well over a decade for my investments to grow. We all are going to witness changes in our lifetime, some good and some not so good. Have to say that my confidence in this country is still strong, and there is NO other place on this earth that I'd want to live and raise my family.

 

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Since you dimed me out I guess I better put my input in. Luckily my wife and I both make good money. She makes more money than me because she works for a private contractor on a goverment contract but her benefits are lousy and she has no retirement. I have better benefits and retirement. We were able to build the house we wanted where we wanted because we give up alot. We have a 20 year mortgage so it will be paid off before I retire which means we pay more every month. Then we cram as much as we possibly can into our retirement, savings, and a college fund for the little girl.

I drive a POS car back and forth to work, I traded my Harley in cause I really needed a truck, we don't spend much on personal things, and we work around each others schedule to avoid paying a babysitter.

Back to the question at hand.
I'm sticking with the same investments I did a year ago and will keep them the same. Yeah it sickens me to see them losing money but I was happy as a clam for the past several years when they were making good money. I figure that it's just part of the gamble. I rationalize that I haven't even started losing my money yet. It's just the interest I made in the past. Don't know if that's completely true but it helps me sleep at night.