Has anyone tried to move your retirement fund into Solo 401K before? With the Solo 401K, you can acquire real estate with it, which I did. With the real estate, you can get rent and appreciation in value. I invested two homes in the down turn of the real estate market and double the value in about 3 years, in the mean time I received income(net expenses) from the rent which will fund my RMD when I am 70.5 years old.
Not everyone can establish a solo 401k, first of all, you need to be self employed with an operating company.
https://www.mysolo401k.net/
@doschicos, she wouldn’t – at least, I don’t think she would stop contributing. It is hard to imagine she would need those funds moved to her pay check, though such circumstances are possible, I suppose. (if we just had to have that extra income…)
I guess I put emphasis on the employer contribution because her investment is getting an automatic boost regardless of market performance. Gotta love the 401(k).
I share GoNoles85 sentiment. The stock market favors stability and I see only global instability given recent election results. After the election I matched all long term losers with long term gainers and sold. I sold off 50% of my Roth stocks and rebalanced our 403B’s to 33:33:33 stocks/bonds/cash. After the run to Dow 20K I rebalanced the taxable accounts to 33:33:33 so we’ll take a bit of tax hit this year on long term capital gains. With interest rates and bond yields rising it’s the perfect time to set up CD and bond ladders, short term initially then longer as returns ramp up.
It’s nice to never consider our home equity when I think about money but on the other hand, but sure glad we have it when I do stop and consider.
That makes no sense whatsoever.
I think he is talking about paper gains. 
I have always been pretty risk averse, and for many years I contributed to my retirement but wasn’t investing well. I’ve never been close to 100% stock. I hardly ever rebalance, but just last night I lowered my stock investment percentage.
Paper gains are meaningless.
Why not put cash that’s sitting around earning nothing into short-term bonds that will at least earn something? Then, as rates rise, move them into medium- or long-term bonds.
I never understood the idea of “paper gains”. Gains are gains. Losses are losses.
I won’t buy bonds or any fixed income investments because (1) they are boring and (2) like you said when interest rates rise bonds values will decline so your returns are ruined since whatever interest you are earning is wiped out by the decline in the principal value.
I missed out on gains. Obviously, that means something. I know what you mean though. I didn’t really lose anything since I wasn’t invested but ny missing out on the gains I did in fact have a loss :-). It’s perfectly obvious.
I know! I keep hearing all these investment advisors on radio shows talking about how much people lost during the last market crash. Talking about paper losses as if they really lost the money.
We had a HUGE paper loss in 2009. Did not sell a thing. Sold the thing last year for a hefty profit. All gains or losses are paper - until you pull the trigger.
Yeah, but if you had held for one more year you would have had a bigger gain so since the realized gain you had was smaller than the realized gain you could have had you had a gain and a loss. … :-).
I’m actually arguing the opposite, @busdriver11. They did lose real money. In the investment world, portfolios are “marked to market” every day. So, it is real money you are losing. Just because you didn’t cash out a portfolio that day, doesn’t mean you didn’t lose or gain value. Since most of us keep our $$ in securities of some kind, instead of in our mattress or in gold bullion in a bank account, each day’s movement represents really value lost or gained. Maybe it’s just my way of thinking about it from having to use “mark to market” or “fair value” accounting on a daily basis.
When experts talk about ten-year growth in the stock market, it assumes you’ve been in the market the entire time – on both major loss days and major gain days. So if you’re sitting it out and you miss those major gain days – like last week’s 350-point gain – you’re missing out.
Anyone who doesn’t have an excel file that doesn’t list their assets, liabilities and net worth with the assets valued at FMV and the excel spreadsheet up dated daily for each purchase is not a true accountant. You can also use that same excel schedule to forecast your net worth out into the future by making reasonable assumptions about asset growth. It is very simple.
I guess I don’t think like people in the investment world, then. The market goes up and down, when it goes up, I attempt to sell a bit, when it goes down, I buy a little bit more. I don’t think I’m actually losing money unless I sell and lock in those losses.
That’s opportunity cost what VeryHappy describes. GoNoles’ decision to sit in cash involves an opportunity cost. Time will tell if it is a good or bad move. It is an extreme move to go “all in” or more accurately “all not in”, though, as that strategy puts you in the hole immediately if you factor in inflation.
Why use an excel spreadsheet when I can log into my investment portfolio and have it right there at my fingertips courtesy of my broker/fund company?
@busdriver11 So, if prior to the last stock market you had $1 million in assets and after you had $800,000 in assets, would that not be a loss? Your net worth would have taken a big drop. That’s not paper, that’s a fact.