So, are you buying? Selling? What?

[Beaverhausen]

I am curious if anyone here is doing anything about the money they have in the stock market.

I have some mutual funds and an annuity as well as a 401K at work. I know didly about what to do right now.

should we panic yet?

[Kutjara]

1. I saw this shitstorm coming three years ago.

I sold my house, put my modest savings into deposit accounts in highly rated banks, paid off my debts, and hunkered down to wait out the storm. I also bored everyone I knew silly telling them what was going to happen and recommending they do what I did. Of course, they all ignored me and accused me of "chickenlittleism".

And no, it doesn't feel good at all to have been "proved right." I'd much rather have been very very wrong.

[Wickerman]

6. Why'd ya sell your house?

Curious as to why you did that. I consider my house a lasting asset. I know that eventually the housing market will come back. If not, well, I got a place to live, even if the whole of civilization crumbles we still have the house.

Interested in your perspective on why to sell. Maybe we have different takes due to geography? :shrug:

Small midwestern town here.

[Kutjara]

10. Because it was grossly overpriced.

I looked at the long term price trend in the housing market, going back to the turn of the 20th Century, and the current housing market (I was living in London at the time) was so far above the line it had nowhere to go but down. The stock market was the same, incidentally. Also, banks were making it very easy for people to borrow against their home equity, meaning that gains from price inflation were being sucked out and used to pay for cars, holidays, and consumer goods. This meant that any market downturn would result in "negative-equity" very quickly, increasing the rate of default and foreclosure.

Also, the old wisdom about property being a long term store of value doesn't really apply any more. People mistakenly think that, just because a house looks solid and sits on land it will always hold some value. Well, that's true...up to a point. But when that value has been inflated to ten or twenty times the underlying asset value, it could take a lifetime or more for people to make their money back. For example, property in Tokyo is still trading at 10-30% of it's pre-crash levels. It's unlikely to return to early 90s values for decades.

Finally, while a house may be valuable in itself, a lot of that value is determined by where it's located. When boom turns to bust, all those "great investments" in "up and coming" communities" start to look like what they are: overpriced dumps in slums. If local industry takes a dive, then the housing market will go with it. Where I lived, for example, most of my neighbors were bankers and financial services types. I knew their industry was in for a bad time, and that this would cause a greater than average fall in the values of homes in areas where they tend to live. So I got outta Dodge while the getting was good.

While much of my experience was in the UK, I haven't seen anything here in L. A. that has made me change my mind. If anything, the brand of insanity that infected the London property market was even more virulent here. Houses were stupidly expensive and annual price increases were clearly unsustainable. I can't see values returning to pre-2008 levels for years and years, maybe decades if what's happening now really does lead to a "Depression" (as Caribou Barbie keeps saying).

[Wickerman]

17. gotcha

I think we in small town USA might be better positioned on housing value. We didn't rise wildly out here in the sticks. Modestly, but not not too bad. We haven't fallen horribly - yet, either.

[Lance_Boyle]

2. yes, and yes

lots of bargains to be had now, but forget going long on anything. Hell, if you'd bought Fannie or Freddie on Monday you'd have doubled your investment by now. But those are two dangerous places to play, so I'm not kicking myself too hard for missing out on those gravy trains. Pick up solid companies cheap (Intel and NVidia are both great deals in tech at <$19 and <$12, respectively), and dump them when your target gains are made (except Intel - bought in at several points in the $18-$19 range, and plan to stay in and collect dividends until I feel comfortable getting back into financials).

Just know your tolerance for risk.

[Beaverhausen]

12. see- that's too complicated for me

I don't even know what "going long" means.

[Selatius]

16. It is buying stock and holding it until it appreciates in value. "Shorting" is the opposite.

If you have been shorting the last two weeks before the short sale ban, you would've been in a position to make a killing. Shorting is basically betting that a stock would fall in value.

For example, consider an investor who wants to sell short 100 shares of a company, believing it is overpriced and will fall. The investor's broker will borrow the shares from someone who owns them with the promise that the investor will return them later. The investor immediately sells the borrowed shares at the current market price. If the price of the shares drops, he/she "covers the short position" by buying back the shares, and his/her broker returns them to the lender. The profit is the difference between the price at which the stock was sold and the cost to buy it back, minus commissions and expenses for borrowing the stock.

[Fluffdaddy]

3. staying put. Nothing but a paper loss right now

[rucky]

4. JMHO...

If you've been investing for awhile, and you don't plan to retire anytime soon, I'd try to get a read on your "basis" (what you bought things for) - and see how much you're losing personally, before you make a decision.

There really aren't any stable alternatives right now that would warrant taking a big loss to jump into.

[Virginia Dare]

5. I'm staying put for now..

When I heard a couple of years ago that Dick Cheney and Bill Gates were investing heavily in inflation protected bonds, that's where I started investing, and mostly got out of stocks.

Luckily I'm married to one of the cheapest SOB's who ever walked, he's also a very conservative investor, he's pissed our broker off so many times by not going into stocks.

Also, we paid off our mortagage and our cars and carry no consumer debt, so we should be as okay as anybody can be going into this time. Hopefully we can keep our jobs, that's the next worry.

[NeedleCast]

7. I mostly moved to safer waters

But I'm fairly young, so I still have about 50% of the money going into my 401K in the market.

What to do with your money will largely depend on your feelings of where this is all going. The chicken littles might be right, this might be the end of western civilization. Personally I feel like that's not the case. If you're near retirement age, I'd move as much as you can into low risk areas. If you're younger, this might be the best thing that happens to your retirement account between now and when you retire.

Panicing, however, is probably the worst thing to do.

[TahitiNut]

8. I can only afford cash these days.

:silly:

[slackmaster]

9. No changes

401k withholding rate set at 18% for the year. Buying mix of S&P 500, international, and high-yield stock funds. And some cash.

[mnhtnbb]

11. Went to about 80% cash in early summer. Stuck my toe in last week

with adding to some shares of international funds.

We were in a peculiar situation, though, having had money sitting in Panama to close on the house we were building there (paying cash)and when we gave up on needing the money to close(we're planning on suing the developer for not finishing the house by the contract date)we brought the cash back to the US.

Too busy with moving next week into the house we've bought here to replace the one that burned down August 07 to do much else right now.

[gravity]

13. Don't panic

We make the worst financial decisions when emotions take over. If your funds are diversified, then I would stay put. If you don't know what to do, see a financial advisor

[The Straight Story]

14. Stealing and selling

;)

[RB TexLa]

15. Buying Chinese financials, Chinese transportation and Chinese shipping.

[plcdude]

18. Buying

go for green technologies I am invested in an Algae biodiesel company.

[ThomWV]

19. The only way to guarantee a loss is to sell when prices are down

Sitting and waiting. It has always proved to be the best strategy in the long term.