Investment account back up!

RSKY · Dec 22, 2023

And the market has gone down the past two days! And I am back to my starting point several months ago.

Easy come, easy go.

RSKY

ultrarunner · Dec 22, 2023

I think a friend retiring and transferring/rolling her 401k took a hit...

She said looks like it's all working out earlier this week but yesterday was distressed.

I'm thinking a 401k sell it order has a built in lag?

CloverKnollFarms · Dec 22, 2023

I'm still up 27% for the year. The recent pull back has been minimal. Not that it matters when I still have 20 years to go

Market actually is on its second day of rebounding. I'd sorta like a sell off, say 30% this next year to buy at a discount again. The past two years have been nice to buy things on sale.

RSKY · Dec 23, 2023

I may be wrong, but I think the market usually makes a year end "correction" and this may be it. And yes the yearly trend has been up by quite a bit. My problem is that I stuck a lot of mine in one mutual fund. Actually five different accounts with my name and my wife's name on them but going to our grands at our death. So I am hopefully looking twenty to thirty years in the future. Anyway, this money is invested in a fund that promises the highest gain over time but it can also make some pretty wild swings. I know this and am comfortable with it. Others might not be so comfortable. Over the past ten+ years that I have managed my own funds I have learned to 'laugh' at the downturns. Might as well laugh, can't do anything about it.

RSKY

CloverKnollFarms · Dec 23, 2023

I don’t know that there are trends that can be easily tracked based on time of year. Perhaps in general terms, but with terrorism in shipping channels creating energy and goods uncertainties, multiple wars, and an election coming… there are too many moving pieces to attribute gains and losses to one specific vector. In the end, investments rest heavily on how investors feel… humans.

MoKelly · Dec 23, 2023

I’ve heard about the so called “Santa Clause” rally in late December.

There are only a few trading days left for ole St Nick.

milkman636 · Dec 23, 2023

Torvy said:
CDs are almost always a loss. Here's some unbiased info.

CDs vs. Inflation: Are They Keeping Up?

Learn how to determine whether the money invested in certificates of deposit (CDs) can keep pace with the rate of inflation and how you measure inflation.

www.investopedia.com

CDs have been attractive last few months with yields over 5%. I have taken advantage of this spike and locked in a three year spread of CDs that will mature around my ideal retirement year. I figure that will give me a guaranteed amount of funds that I can either draw from or reinvest. I’ll have access to that money without any concern for whatever the stock market is doing at that time. In the meantime that money is growing at 5% per year, which is higher than the historical rate of inflation. I did this with about 10% of the funds inside my Roth IRA and opted for CDs with a monthly coupon so I can see regular growth happening. I think it’s a good plan.

California · Dec 23, 2023

CloverKnollFarms said:
I don’t know that there are trends that can be easily tracked based on time of year. ... In the end, investments rest heavily on how investors feel… humans.

Guessing where the market might go was possible before the internet. A good sense of the public's wishes could help reveal the next opportunity.

Now - betting against computer and AI aided investment strategy, isn't a reasonable strategy. The big investment houses will always be a step ahead of you.

I read something recently that just might be the key to the puzzle. (Or tin-hat imagination, I don't know):

All of the big gains in the investment world, is the big guys betting against one another. The retail investor is sucked into 'investing' to earn a 'reasonable return' only because his money is needed to fund these large scale bets. In other words we're the sheep. While the giants go toe to toe using the funds we've provided them, to play with. True? I don't know.

CloverKnollFarms · Dec 23, 2023

California said:
Guessing where the market might go was possible before the internet. A good sense of the public's wishes could help reveal the next opportunity.

Now - betting against computer and AI aided investment strategy, isn't a reasonable strategy. The big investment houses will always be a step ahead of you.

I read something recently that just might be the key to the puzzle. (Or tin-hat imagination, I don't know):

All of the big gains in the investment world, is the big guys betting against one another. The retail investor is sucked into 'investing' to earn a 'reasonable return' only because his money is needed to fund these large scale bets. In other words we're the sheep. While the giants go toe to toe using the funds we've provided them, to play with. True? I don't know.

Either way, half of our seven figure retirement, isn't money I invested... It's the pennies they passed on to me. Scraps, maybe. But I'll live off those scraps for decades.

ericm979 · Dec 23, 2023

California said:
I read something recently that just might be the key to the puzzle. (Or tin-hat imagination, I don't know):

All of the big gains in the investment world, is the big guys betting against one another. The retail investor is sucked into 'investing' to earn a 'reasonable return' only because his money is needed to fund these large scale bets. In other words we're the sheep. While the giants go toe to toe using the funds we've provided them, to play with. True? I don't know.

Pretty much. The vast bulk of trading is machine generated. I won't call it ai because it's not all that intelligent. The big traders all have news feeds running straight into their trading engines so they can execute trades on trending news. It's not guys with cigars in back rooms yelling "sell! buy!" into phones any more.

Those traders pay big bucks to locate their data centers close to the exchanges because the length of the wires between the exchange's computers and the trader's computers slows down their trades. If they can get a few milliseconds on the other big traders they can beat them to trades.

They're also front running the trades of retail investors like us. Stock brokers sell the deal flow to a trader so they can front run the trades. That nets them a tiny profit on all the trades they front run. Profit that should have gone to the retail investor. All the brokers do this. It shouldn't be legal but it is.