cthree

What you are involved with is something called dollar cost averaging. What that means is that you buy a fixed amount of securities (your contribution) periodically (each paycheck) over a long period of time.

The downside is that when the market is high you are paying high prices for those securities but the flipside is that when the market is down you pay lower prices.

The point is that it's supposed to average out over a long period of time. If you cease contributing to your retirement accounts now you are losing the advantage of buying low. The time to stop buying stocks is when they are flying high, not when they are in the dumps.

To that end I suggest that the person who said now is the time to buy stocks is more correct than bailing out in the middle of a bear market. Forget the money you've already invested. The real issue is the new money you're going to invest today and tomorrow. Baggage clouds our judgement about what to do going forward.

The real question is "are stocks a good value today?" The answer has to be yes, they are cheap. When they go down 1000 points more then you'll buy them then too. You will never be able to get all your money in at one time at the absolute bottom. It can't be gamed. Stocks are a good buy now and they will be a good buy 1000 points lower. Take advantage of this market slump to buy up as much as you can. When the market is going gangbusters slow down and spend the money to shore up your personal net worth.

vader1

First read my sig.
Oh and before I forget.....


Everyone else in the thread has tried to be helpful or give an opinion without being an pejorative.

vader1

I understand dollar cost averaging and I don't understand why people seem to think I would cease my retirement contributions. I never said at ANY point in this thread I was going to stop contributing.

I have extra money to invest after paying off a small home equity loan for a patio project and getting the yearly bump.

For now, I am just gonna hold most of the new money and lay in the weeds until something jumps out at me. The argument that stocks are down and a good value now, and are even good value 1000 points lower makes everyone agree. But homes have fallen as well, and yes they could go lower to but nobody seems to see they are both commodities that are way down. And home values and trends in one market are not the same as another. They are down here some, but did not have quite the inflated values and sharp declines that places like Vegas had. I guess I will just wait it all out a while longer.