Dow at 12,953.00: seriously what do you guys think this will do????

[Colorado Progressive]

Should we cash out the 401ks and buy gold or sit here with our knees knocking together? It was nice thinking we had some retirement money built up...and money in our house...and maybe college money for the kids...

[DS1]

1. If a .67% percent drop gets your knees knocking, then I'd say yes

Cash everything out and buy gold. Or wood.

[ruiner4u]

2. im putting all my stock in kudzu

Really, people need to understand that a drop of a hundred, two hundred points mean nothing...

its all about the percentage.

[swag]

8. A wise choice indeed.

[CountAllVotes]

10. what is kudzu?

You mean the root? Please advise.

Thanks!

:dem:

[ruiner4u]

14. ahh its an old lounge joke...

The thread that never dies... Just like the plant..:)

[sandnsea]

3. I'd buy some gold

If I had any money. It's only around $600, it's bound to go up. Remember it was at $800 back in the 80's when we had all our interest and inflation problems.

[A HERETIC I AM]

15. 5 & 20 year gold charts

[sandnsea]

21. Go back further

If you factor in inflation since the 80's, gold isn't at its peak considering the shaky market. Smart money has been in gold for a long time, I agree with that. I'd bet it will still be the safe bet for a few years, that and interest vehicles for the speculators.

[Dogmudgeon]

4. Relax. It's worse for the financiers than for us.

Any collapse of the US economy is NOT going to start with the stock market this time. It will be much more difficult to see coming.

Rather than making you paranoid, it should make you start reading more about finance.

--p!

[jgraz]

12. Yeah, those guys are really hurting

It just makes me :cry: Hopefully FEMA will show up with some mobile homes for them to stay in.

[swag]

5. Recall that the DJIA broke 12000 for the first time only last October

Stocks may fall much further, but it should be noted that the S&P 500 is about flat year-to-date and up about 10% since this time last year (not including dividends).

I prefer to buy stocks when they're cheap, so I'll be adjusting my allocation for new 401k contributions accordingly - out of bonds and into stocks.

[phantom power]

6. If you don't think you can afford to see your stocks drop...

you should get out. Or, at least diversify. Take some out and put it into something less volatile. Money market, or something. CDs are returning 5.0% or so these days.

I've always been of the opinion that owning a bit of gold or silver never hurt anybody. I would not personally put all my money there, although I sometimes think I may live to wish I had bought more than I have.

[sabbat hunter]

7. how old are you?

if you are young, sit tight, the market will recover and go back up.

If you are closer to retirement age, maybe switch some into bond funds.

In either case make sure you are well diversified, in many different types of funds/stocks/bonds/

[Colorado Progressive]

11. 37. ok I'll try to relax....just seems the last week has had dire predictions n/t

[Kolesar]

16. find some stock/equity funds in foreign markets that won't get hammered by the falling dollar

Very good advice by sabbit hunter, too!

[pitohui]

9. some perspective please

you said

nice thinking we had some retirement money built up...and money in our house...and maybe college money for the kids...

considering how briefly in real time that the DOW was over 14K or even, really, over 13K, i don't see the hysteria

in real terms the stock market has been stalled since the dotcom bust and has continued stalled with sub-optimal returns throughout the disaster that is the * presidency, however, 401(k)s are a long term not a short term investment

never cash out 401(k)s, if worst comes to worst, the kids can get loans and scholarships to go to college, but there is no such thing as a retirement loan, and people who fantasize that they can just keep working don't understand the realities of how often people retire against their will because of disability, injury, company being bought out, staff being downsized, age discrimination and so on

keep the 401(k)s sacrosanct no matter what

money in your house is not affected by the DOW anyway, assuming you mean the equity in your house

[Paulie]

13. The DOW is not the market

It's only 30 stocks.

[Warpy]

17. I'm living on interest and dividends

so I'm staying put.

Cashing in now would cause me to scramble around to find insured places for the cash, which would then earn half of what it's earning now.

We are heading into a period of steep inflation. Cashing out now will fix that dollar amount at whatever you have and drop the income from it. I sincerely doubt the dropped income will be anywhere near the inflation rate.

The best advice is to get out of debt any way you can, the exception being a small fixed mortgage that is cheaper than rent.

Were I into the market for a smaller amount and still working, I would consider transferring it into CDs to ride this out. However, I know that there is still more to hold ordinary stocks up than there is pushing them down.

Institutional investors are the ones who are going to take the major hit from this part of the collapse. They're the ones who took those hedge funds at their word and accepted bad paper as assets.

[KharmaTrain]

20. Very good advice

Many saw this mess coming...the debt crunch didn't just happen overnight. We're almost seeing a replay of the 70's where the defecits run up in Vietnam and the rising price of oil fueled the inflation and drove interest rates up. While that sounds bad, it also can be very good.

Your advice on getting out of debt is crucial...as I suspect we'll see interest rates rise as attempts are to keep the money supply tight...and with it will come higher yielding bonds and other investments...and through them the market will rebound. I could see CDs and other bonds going up to 8% or more in the near future...so that advice is very solid as well.

The "smart money" long ago untied itself to as much of the dollar as it could and has been betting on the Euro. The concern isn't as much about what happens on Wall Street as much as it does on the foreign markets. They've been hedging on the dollar to continue to fall and this may not be such a bad gamble.

Cheers...

[Colorado Progressive]

22. thanks guys for experienced advice n/t

[Make7]

18. The DOW is still up about 3.5% since the beginning of this year. ( n/t )

[KharmaTrain]

19. I Got In When It Was Below 5,000

And right after my first purchase, the crash of '87 hit...where the market tanked and my little stock lost more than half its value. That stock was a little company called Microsoft...dare I say I think I made my money back.

The more people who bail on the market the worse it gets the deeper this problem gets and the less everyone's overall money is worth.

One would hope you have a porfolio manager or broker who is seeing where the market is weak and strong...not every stock is tanking...so if you're gonna make a move, I'd rebalance what you have...the market has taken far greater hits and has bounce back stronger.

[roamer65]

23. Don't cash out, borrow from your 401K.

I borrowed since I can pay myself a better interest rate than the crappy corporate bonds. Buy gold with the borrowed money. By borrowing, you dont take the hit of the withdrawl penalty and you can always sell the gold and pay back the money.

[Javaman]

24. If it drops another grand over the next week, I would be concerned then. nt