Quote:
Originally Posted by shaneo69
I started my new job in November '07 (coincidentally enough, working in the 401k dept), and I immediately rolled in $10,000 from my previous employer's 401k. I've been putting in 5% since 2/1/08 with a 3% match, and I looked at my account balance the other day, and it was...still at $10,000 or just a little less. So I've pretty much been throwing away 5% of all of my paychecks since Feb.
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If you sell out and go to cash, THEN you will have thrown away all that money. Until you sell, its only a theoretical loss on paper. Right now you have a lot more shares than you started, so for you at least, if the market recovers it will move up faster than it would have a year ago with fewer shares.
Frankly, I'm trying to figure out if I can afford to increase my contribution, stocks are on sale right now. A lot of these banks are being forced to sell perfectly good assets that are not in trouble at fire sale prices to stay alive, and then you have panicked fools who pay too much attention to money TV shows who are really entertainers.
Buy and hold works if you have the time. (If you dont, then what the hell are you doing 100% in stocks?) If your retired or near it, you need at least 15-20 years worth of safe money to let the stocks ride. Timing the market is a fools game, and when the market recovers from a horrible down market, it does not recover slowly. If your out a month you likely miss a ton of it.