A Perspective on the Stock Market in Challenging Days

It's freaking me out. I am set to retire in ONE week. Thankfully, most of my retirement funds are from my pension. But my secondary retirement account is taking a hit.

 

An interesting fact. As I see it. My future SS benefit is $3,295 monthly as a single person if I work until 70, and don't pay myself any additional in these years, or any less.

Am I rich? Am I a millionaire based just on my SS? I'd say yes. A very generous estimate of a safe (guaranteed) money return is 4%, probably much less presently. How much is my SS benefit worth? $1MM X 4% = $40K. My $3,295 SS benefit, which will likely be greater as the years go by breaks down to $1MM @ 3.295%.

What is my SS benefit worth when it is broken down in a very simple, common sense fashion? I'd say well over $1MM. You'd need at least $1MM in principle to return an income as described. Same holds true for defined benefit pensions. And if one wanted to apply this to a non defined benefit plan, the amount of principle increases to levels that I don't want to think about.

Will social security be around? I'd say yes. While Americans are generally very non activist, take away their social security benefits, that all of us have paid into our entire lives, and watch what happens. This is not a political statement. But people who earn their living by getting elected, like to get elected, and would probably never take any actions which might jeopardize this.

I find this germane to the to the discussion, and it's not intended to be political, rather a statement of fact when people start talking about not getting social security. I can't envision many scenarios where SS won't be a part of someone's retirement plan they can count on.

In some ways, we're all millionaires due to SS.

 

My money sits in a savings account completely unaffected from stock market fluctuations.

I can access it anytime I like without ever having an issue.

Sure, it doesnt grow other than what I put in there but for me its worth the piece of mind. I dont want my hard earned dollars being at the mercy of someone else or eve worse some entity that doesnt care if they take it all.

I will retire on time on schedule and nothing will stop or delay it.

Matter of fact, putting in my notice next week so will have the summer to just relax and do nothing but drink and enjoy myself. This full time stuff is just not for me. Only need 10 hours a week to meet my bills anyway so I can get that anywhere.

No bills either so that makes it easier to do.

 

I didn't mean to suggest that the hedging/'insurance' aspect of options was "highly speculative" - only that index options, as a stand-alone product, are. They often expire worthless.

If you pay for any investment product that carries an expiration date or a 'take delivery' date (commodities), it is a riskier play than simply buying (or shorting) the respective stocks (by virtue of NOT having an expiration date).
I get what you're saying about using them to protect against losing one's gains for a fixed time-period.
You see it as an inexpensive insurance policy. I get that.

 

I used to Watch him every night and I remember that day. I didn’t have a lot back then and had sold a good bit to buy a refurbished 69 Camaro SS as we needed a second vehicle anyway. Turned out well but not due to any skills on my part.

 

I understand. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than smart!. One of my best inadvertent investment decisions, was when I borrowed money from my 401K account right before the crash of 2000, to buy a new car. I paid it back, over a time period that (in retrospect) turned out to be a very good time to buy stocks.

 

Having been through these since the 80’s and always riding them through I decided to take a some what different approach this time. 2008 (?) and 2018 I had a little dry powder and put it all on leveraged ETFs which paid nicely, particularly the roughly ten years after the financial crisis.

This time I went to cash in my large accounts late January and left the smaller accounts in growth mutual funds. The thinking was when it was time to get back in I could move large blocks of money and not worry about several accounts with small amounts. I did nibble back in at the wrong time and dumped it last week but I think I am close to jumping in.

 

I ran a screen yesterday on low P/E with high dividend and there are quite a few. I didn’t have time to research any but hope to today

 

Awesome similar to what I did. Just lucky right?

 

The vegasmessageboard contrarian indicator holds up. Dow +1,271

 

I breathed a huge sigh of relief on today's close. One day does not a make a recovery, and I think we have a quite while to go before we can set new highs. However, after last weeks bloodletting (remember, the Ouch, Eeek and Medic part of Louis Rukeyser's message) , I will definitely take a day like today.

 

There had to be some profit takers who really enjoyed the past week. I should have taken my own advice and at least swung at MO around 38, but kept holding out hope for 33-35. And where is it at today? 42+, ugh!

 

My brokerage account ended up 3.98% today - my accountant was up 7.1%

 

I partially jumped back in this morning and timing worked well. I expect a certain amount of base building from here so am going back in thirds. If I am wrong, I'll just up the amount of leveraged ETFs to cover any missed gains.

Overall, a welcome vote of confidence

 

SELL! SELL! That’s a great daily amount unless you’re at the tables in Vegas, and well, no one is walking from the tables with an extra $4 on $100 buy-in. Guess need to sit tight and make that amount double.

 

It's funny that you can't get that much interest from a bank in a year and you can gain it in one day at the market. I'm holding for now, over the last month I sold one stock and no buys. I was going to sell that one anyway as it's rating went down a bit ago. I sold it at a very small profit.

 

There are times I could probably just play the market and make a better return than any banking services, possibly more than in a casino as well. But frankly there’s not enough enjoyment to buying and selling stocks as compared to actually playing in the casino. The only enjoyment is making money with stocks, but I don’t want to be tied to watching a computer all day.

 

Just checked my profit sharing portfolio this morning, took a hit around 100k, been suggested to me to bump my contributions to my 401k to make a speedier recovery

 

Is that the hit for today or over the last week or so? I went to Vegas 02/20-02/24 and got hammered in the market while gone and the pain continued all last week. I look back at the Vegas loss now and think small potatoes compared to the market. At least that's what I tell myself.

 

I don't play the market, I invest in stocks that I think are going to grow based on what they sell or the services they provide. I'm using money that I started to invest slowly about 20 years ago. This account is beside my IRA that I converted from two separate 401Ks and another retirement account. I've retired for several years due to getting laid off durning the banking crash in 2008. Occasionally I buy something speculative as do when I sit in front of a video poker machine. My goal is to make more money than I can get from interest from banks or bonds, but I try to do much better than that, and I have.