Retirement balance with the current market?

I'm 36 and my wife and I saw our retirement go down about 30% this year. Unfortunately we were going to borrow out of that short term to afford the down payment on our next house (likely a 60 day gap between closings). Now with interest rates spiking up and 401k way down, we had to go to a backup plan and get a different type of loan, which will cost us about $300/month or more on our mortgage.

Anyways, we just put an offer in on a house and once we can sell ours, will pay off all our debt outside mortgage/cars. Then I'm hiring a financial advisor to help us prep for retirement. And once my last kid is out of daycare, I hope to pay double mortgage payments each month.

Still think I'll end up working until I'm 70 though, in some capacity. I've worked with consultants who do part time gigs in the winter and take the summers off to golf. Seems nice to me.
 
Is Walmart pretty flexible with scheduling?

Speaking or WalMart... The market is in an overall free fall. Most big name stocks are down 30% or more over the last month. Restaurant stocks are down 70% from that high point!... But not WalMart. They seem to be weathering this storm quite well. In fact, they hit an all time high today. I kinda figured that would be the case after all the panic shoppers emptied the racks this week.

Waiting for a bottom so I can get back in.

Let us know when you do. You timed that exit perfectly.
 
I'm usually at about 60% stocks but sold a bunch late Jan then again in mid Feb. Now it's about 20% - 25%

I started cost averaging back in a couple weeks ago but decided to put that on hold for another month or so. Interested in hearing when you all think it's time again.
 
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I have a wad in a money market account just dying to jump back in..... buddies at work say wait a bit......

I've crapped myself a couple times watching it bounce around! :oops:
 
I don't have the capacity for dealing with the anxiety that comes with this sort of gambling. I have a bit of pension from when I worked at the college, and whatever my employer puts in a 401k for me, but at almost 55, it's a bit late to worry about retirement. I am not putting my own hard-earned cash into that one-armed bandit. I always figured I'd be working 10 years past dead to break even anyway, if a winning Powerball ticket isn't in the cards....
 
I actually think this is going to be a lot worse than the crash of 2008. Everything was one big bubble waiting to burst to begin with. Coronavirus was the pin that finally popped it. The bubble bursting alone should've resulted in a 20-30% correction. Stocks were, and still are, way overvalued. The S&P P/E was close to 25, nearly twice its historical mean.

But now we're looking at a huge economic disruption, the likes we haven't seen in a century. Compound this on top of a huge asset bubble burst.

Expect to see new jobless claims in the millions. Those people certainly won't be spending any more than absolutely necessary. Discretionary spending will fall to nearly zero. Restaurants, shopping malls, movie theaters, and most retail stores in general will be decimated. This will ripple through the world economy.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the S&P drop below 1500. Maybe even below 1000.

I wouldn't do anything right now. This is going to be like 1929 all over again. For example if you bought the drop after Black Tuesday, say a year later the S&P was about $20. Given that a year earlier the high was $30 it seems like a good thing, no? If you bought a year after Black Tuesday at $20 it would've taken you 20 years before you were back to even and that's before inflation. Factor in inflation and it would've taken you 25 years.

I tell my broker "in the long run the market obeys fundamentals, in the short term the market follows psychology". We were in a stage of irrational optimism and overpriced assets. When the pendulum swings the other way people become excessively pessimistic. That's when you get back in.

There's a saying "don't catch a falling knife". Just wait until everything settles. Wait until this is over and then get back in.
 
There's a saying "don't catch a falling knife". Just wait until everything settles. Wait until this is over and then get back in.

But what if you haven't gotten out yet? :(

Everything I'm reading says "Do NOT sell", "Do NOT act out of panic". [source].

I'm not completely panicked. I'm trying to look at it logically and realistically. If a) nobody knows where the bottom of this thing is, b) Everyone's pretty sure we're not there yet and probably far from it... then why not jump out before it falls another 25%?
 
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But what if you haven't gotten out yet? :(

Everything I'm reading says "Do NOT sell", "Do NOT act out of panic". [source].

I'm not completely panicked. I'm trying to look at it logically and realistically. If a) nobody knows where the bottom of this thing is, b) Everyone's pretty sure we're not there yet and probably far from it... then why not jump out before it falls another 25%?

If you haven't gotten out yet, you shouldn't panic, but you should develop a plan of what conditions will cause you to act and get out.
 
Things are looking pretty grim but China and South Korea are getting back on their feet just two or three months after the real outbreak started. If you believe what China says, and other countries can follow suit and get things contained in a few months hopefully things will turn around.

On the other hand, if you got $10k or $20k sitting around, you can clean up on options with all this volatility.
 
My nephew is getting slammed right now at UPS.. just as busy as Xmas. People are buying items online as they avoid public places and look for hard to find items.. and using PayPal for many if these transactions.

Precious metals were the first stocks to recently make recent rebounds to over 40% above thier lows, when others stocks were 15-17%
 
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My nephew is getting slammed right now at UPS.. just as busy as Xmas. People are buying items online as they avoid public places and look for hard to find items.. and using PayPal for many if these transactions.

Precious metals were the first stocks to recently make recent rebounds
Yeah, I've been thinking UPS and FedEx might be good investments. Their stock prices have dropped with the greater market but their business has increased. UPS is currently trading around 18 times earnings which is a bit high but I bet their earnings will nearly double for this quarter and the next.
 
I know with all the online stuff right now, netflix, amazon, fedex / ups but is it too late?

On a lighter note, I talk about cleaning up on options and I'm being taken to the cleaners with calls on AAPL, LOFL! smh.
 
I was fortunate, through complete dumb luck. At the end of last year a set of circumstances had me move my 457 (like a police officer's 401k) into cash for a short time. I've been quite the complainer on this as I watched record high after record high this year, as I contemplated where I could get back in without taking a beating for buying the top. Because of this, I had nothing in the stock market, and several thousand in bonds. The mass was in cash. Quite literally, Thank God. I lost a couple of hundred bucks in the bond account, but it can only get so bad there. Otherwise, I'm good. Thankful...
 
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