@MomofJandL, I agree.
I’m a 50/50 kind of gal, but same principle.
From a “timing the market” perspective, we are currently in a pretty uncommon and favorable position. Getting much more of a recovery is going to be tough sledding and the likelihood of a correction in the near future is signIficant. Now would be a good time to consider moving at least a portion of short-term/non-retirement investments to safety. And cash is an acceptable safety position…I would rather have money sitting idle on the sidelines in a volatile market than regret not doing anything because the low-return vehicle rates are extra low right now. Personally, I am making sure I have enough safe to cover my D’s college expenses for the upcoming year along with some extra cushion in case my employment is impacted. Aside from that, I’ll ride out the eventual storm that will occur when stimulus measures are stopped and the next wave of panic sets in.
It’ll be interesting seeing what today brings.
We did this also. I think markets are going to be volatile for quite a while. We are retired and need to take about half our living expenses from IRAs and 401k’s. After this last move we have five year’s expenses in cash or money market funds (“bucket one” if you follow that idea). Makes me able to sleep better.
Sleeping well at night is important, much moreso to us then any market timing. We have a considerable amount in cash currently—some is in PenFed, earning north of 1% interest, some is in other accounts earning even less. Thankfully, the cash sums allow us to ignore the volatility and ride things out.
We’ve got quite a bit in cash as well. Originally we thought we’d be buying a condo, so we didn’t invest the money, but those plans are on indefinite hold. Having the cash allows us to not get bent out of shape about the market.
GDP contracted 4.8%. That’s certainly not a healthy sign.
Capital One has dropped to 1.15% but they are offering a 1% bonus if you keep it in a year affectively bringing you above 2% a year from now.
We always roll this way, with a chunk in cash to carry us through a major market correction. We tend to be pretty aggressive with the balance but my personal threshold for volatility is fairly high. That gob of cash does help with the sleep factor. It’s a somewhat lopsided barbell strategy.
Easy come, easy go
Robinhooded. 
The wet behind ears daytraders are getting creamed (or Cramered?). They were all in preK during the dot bomb.
Some degree of sanity has returned to the market.
We just checked yesterday and we made everything back plus some…well not going to check today…LOL
We were actually ahead for a bit - a couple of days. Glad I picked some to sell at that point. Fully ready to hold the rest because I figured a correction would be coming once folks started to realize opening up legally wasn’t really going to matter if people’s perceptions don’t change.
I plan to buy some when I think things have hit bottom. I can’t see any better investment out there for longer term. 1 or 2% is something (and we have our emergency fund in that), but I think sooner or later a true recovery will happen.
Hmm, now I’m wondering if housing prices will follow? We have a rental property a tenant is leaving and were going to sell taking advantage of those who want to leave larger cities. Now I’m unsure. Rerenting might be better…
So so so glad I am now all in cash.
I am too close to retirement to worry about the stock market every day. I will not have as much as I had hoped in five years, but at least I am not losing what I already have.
Am hoping by December things will have stopped going up down and all around and I can get back into something that has more interest than a high yield savings account. Until then, I am going to just sit on my nest egg and wait.
I just moved some more from savings into CDs. I have these laddered. Interest rates are terrible, but marginally better than the credit union money markets account rates, and I have nothing to use the money on for the next year or so. Besides, I think I can break the CD and get the money by forfeiting the interest if I need to do so. (Does that sound correct?)
I told myself not once but TWICE that I should adjust when the DOW went over 26K. First time back around the holidays, and second just this week. I actually did an adjustment, but I did it the wrong way (put more in stocks as opposed to vice versa). It’s only a fairly small percentage anyway, so I just left it like that. OOps.
But, I will get a pension, and I have multiple years worth of the additional money I think I need above my pension in cash, so I THINK I’m fine/still being fairly conservative at @50% stocks. Fingers crossed it’s all better in 3-5 years, if not before.
This market smells eerily similar to the dot bomb bubble (not post-mortgage meltdown). Very worrisome and sad…
Drill into your kids’ heads: no margin trading. NO MARGIN TRADING.
I’ve told my kids never to gamble with something they don’t have. This applies to casinos or similar and the stock market.
Regarding Robinhood though (my youngest uses them) when I saw they have 31 million users (via a different article than linked above) many of whom are day, swing, or short term trading, is this the new normal vs slow rises and dividends? 31 million is a lot of people. Is it enough to affect things?
31 million dabblers may not have as much effect as one institution or very wealthy person in affecting the market overall or for a given stock. However, if the 31 million dabblers all dabble in the same stock or small number of stocks (particularly of smaller companies) at the same time, then they could have a significant collective effect.
I read somewhere this week that sports gamblers have now switched to the stock market since no sports to bet on.