401K :I'm thinking of doing something drastic

[Maggie'sMom]

OP--

Just know this: investing is gambling. It's not scientific and it's not predictable, except in hindsight.

If you don't want to gamble with your hard-earned money, stop listening to the advice of experts (most of whom got the 2008 crash and the 4 crashes before that all wrong). Do what you feel comfortable and secure doing. You are the one earning the money. Better to spend your money at Disney (or doing anything else you love) than to watch it disappear in so-called investments.

And don't listen to me, either. Listen to yourself.

It's not gambling at all if you do it right. There's actually a ton of math/statistics behind it that will increase your returns and help you predict what's to come.

I started getting nervous in the summer of 2008 about the potential for a huge crash in the market. I moved a lot of my money into safer investments: fixed income funds, CDs, money markets. I didn't move everything because it's always good to be diversified. I didn't lose nearly as much money as I could have when the market fell in the fall of 2008. I started moving money back into riskier investments in late winter/early spring of 2009 and have made a nice return. A guy I worked with had shorted a number of financial stocks. He predicted the downfall of several companies well ahead of time and turned it into his advantage. When I talk to him about stocks, we're always looking at charts and historical data and using that to guide our investment decisions. It doesn't mean we don't ever lose money, but we can generally beat the market on returns.

 

[fab5friend99]

Don't worry about your investments going down now especially if you are 5+ years away from retirement. I like the market being down! Think of it as buying stocks on sale!