Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit
Congratulations. You've managed to do just about the wrong thing at every turn with your investment funds.
First off, get yourself a real financial manager, not a discussion forum. Once who can assess your situation, your needs, your goals, and then determine which buckets your money needs to go into and how it should be allocated. For example, if you are retired (or close) you may want 3 buckets: one for immediate access, an intermediate bucket, and a long term bucket. Then you and your financial manager can determine what goes into each bucket-for example, even at retirement your long term bucket can contain higher risk investments. Even if the market does turn down for a bit, you're protected by your immediate and intermediate term buckets, and when the market recovers you'll still have your long term bucket available.
When you are planning for your future, there should never be a "set it and forget it" option-that's simply foolish. Your investments are something that need to be managed on an ongoing basis, and when a buying opportunity arises (such as 2008-2010) then you should be prepared to invest heavily to take advantage of the market when it returns. The smart investors took advantage of investments when they were on sale at huge discounts, now those investors are reaping the rewards.
Originally Posted By: heyu
401 k ,,,safe funds ? --- Nothing is safe , With our country in 19 trillion in debt and counting , someday they will take it all away from everyone and there will be nothing you can do about it , not for me , i have zero debt and know how to save my own coins
Nonsense. I've been hearing that same tripe from the tin foil hat club for decades.
Pop, ever hear of a book titled "where are the customer's yachts?" - guess who owns them, the financial planners. They make money off your money. Take the time to read one decent, index approach book, and you'll do better than 90% of the investors, manager or not.
Also, you know "bucket" approach is just simply mental accounting, right? It doesn't create money or safety. Its arbitrarily portioning your money. A simple safe withdrawal rate (SWR) approach works fine in the withdrawal stage.
Finally, if the OP had "set it and forget it", then he'd be fine. He wouldn't have sold, he wouldn't be wondering if now is the time to get back in. Messing with your investments is what messes the average investor up. Leaving them alone, especially in 07-09, was the absolute best thing someone could have done.
For anyone trying to glean advice out of this thread: DON'T
Look to Bogleheads.org for answers. You don't go there for oil advice, so don't look here for investing answers. Find them yourself.