Anybody Buying Yet? Where’s the Bottom?

[406dn]

I suspect that some might just take joy in watching the current administration fail.

It is nice to see a tacit admission of the failure if the current administration. This would be easier to stomach if it wasn't such an own goal. Combine that with Trump's absolute inability to to admit any mistake, we are in for a rough ride.

Any joy that I might enjoy, is pretty expensive. I can think of many ways to spend a 100k or so, other than having Trump conduct a tariff experiment.

 

[seeth07]

every day?

If you day trade like myself, then yes. The market today is extremely choppy and volatile. I've made 22 transactions today with take profit orders set at 30% profit after a bunch of buy orders hit early this morning during the pre open and early huge drop in the market and I'm sitting nice and pretty with a huge profit today

 

[Bonasababy]

If you day trade like myself, then yes. The market today is extremely choppy and volatile. I've made 22 transactions today with take profit orders set at 30% profit after a bunch of buy orders hit early this morning during the pre open and early huge drop in the market and I'm sitting nice and pretty with a huge profit today

You realize of course that the VAST majority of people's money is tied up in a retirement plan that they cannot trade due to retirement plan rules? Heck if it's sinking like a rock and you want to move money you have to watch it keep sinking until market close.

And for the vast majority or people day trading versus contributing to their retirement plan is a horrible idea. And not just because they are on average making more money not doing so.

 

[seeth07]

You realize of course that the VAST majority of people's money is tied up in a retirement plan that they cannot trade due to retirement plan rules? Heck if it's sinking like a rock and you want to move money you have to watch it keep sinking until market close.

And for the vast majority or people day trading versus contributing to their retirement plan is a horrible idea. And not just because they are on average making more money not doing so.

O I absolutely agree. Just saying that for people that do mess around with day trading these are great times and huge opportunities exist to make some serious big profits right now

 

[Big Sky Guy]

Had lunch with my parents. I'm damn glad that none of this matters for me. I'll ride it out just fine. But I would hate to be on a fixed income that's based on the market, as my parents are with their 401k. They will almost certainly be fine, but the stress of not knowing and not being able to do anything about it, is wearing on them.

Same. I keep trying to learn from my parents (mostly their mistakes, unfortunately). First from '08, which I was pretty young to fully understand, and they were still more than a decade out from retirement, now this. All I've learned so far are the importance of the following when retiring:

1. Mortgage free home (and the real dangers of preventing this with re-financing)
2. Don't depend on any one "asset" (401k, Roth, SS, pension, rental, business income, etc.). I used to view a person being "diversified" as having your IRA etc. spread out over various funds (which is true), but I think there is a broader meaning that gets missed by many (including my parents) in other asset classes outside of IRA.
3. Living/eating healthy is hard and costs more now, but health insurance and medical issues costs a lot of money too. Hoping I choose the former hard more often now and throughout my life than they did.
4. Target date funds still decrease in retirement during times like this.

 

[Bonasababy]

Same. I keep trying to learn from my parents (mostly their mistakes, unfortunately). First from '08, which I was pretty young to fully understand, and they were still more than a decade out from retirement, now this. All I've learned so far are the importance of the following when retiring:

1. Mortgage free home
2. Don't depend on any one "asset" (401k, Roth, SS, pension, rental, business income, etc.). I used to view a person being "diversified" as having your IRA etc. spread out over various funds (which is true), but I think there is a broader meaning that gets missed by many (including my parents) in other asset classes outside of IRA.
3. Living/eating healthy is hard and costs more now, but health insurance and medical issues costs a lot of money too. Hoping I choose the former hard more often now and throughout my life than they did.
4. Target date funds still decrease in retirement during times like this.

Good to hear someone soaking up experienced advice!

Mortgage free is a lot more complex than it appears on the surface. We had a choice when we built our place a few years ago. Pay most of it off with cash we had from the previous place and sale of an investment, or pay less and invest the rest.

We found a mortgage at 2 5/8%. We banked on money in retirement accounts doing a LOT better than averaging 2 5/8%. And we were sure right. Made around 3 times as much money in a fairly short time than we would have saved by not having a mortgage payment.

So the strategy should really be minimizing or eliminating high interest debt as much as possible, then comparing expected market performance against investment expected rates of return.

Not saying it isn't highly enticing to pay off a mortgage--but it's not always the wise decision for many folks who got in under lower interest rates than even moderate expected ROR's can bring in.

Many retirement planners talk about "baskets". Guaranteed income is one basket--if you aren't wealthy often the goal ought to be having that income be enough to get by--with the invested income the portion you can adjust withdrawals on based on life income estimates and yearly performance. Even better is when your guaranteed income sources have COLA's that help it keep up with inflation.

Our plan was to delay one of our SS withdrawals to increase the fixed basket portion for us and draw a bit more heavily from the retirment plan until that last SS is taken, then evaluate and probably decrease withdrawals a bit.

 

[Irrelevant]

Same. I keep trying to learn from my parents (mostly their mistakes, unfortunately). First from '08, which I was pretty young to fully understand, and they were still more than a decade out from retirement, now this. All I've learned so far are the importance of the following when retiring:

1. Mortgage free home (and the real dangers of preventing this with re-financing)
2. Don't depend on any one "asset" (401k, Roth, SS, pension, rental, business income, etc.). I used to view a person being "diversified" as having your IRA etc. spread out over various funds (which is true), but I think there is a broader meaning that gets missed by many (including my parents) in other asset classes outside of IRA.
3. Living/eating healthy is hard and costs more now, but health insurance and medical issues costs a lot of money too. Hoping I choose the former hard more often now and throughout my life than they did.
4. Target date funds still decrease in retirement during times like this.

Same here, though I'll never have the balls to go [almost] all-in on one stock like my Dad did in the 90's on amazon.
1. There is no such thing, my parents property taxes are more than their mortgage ever was.
2. I'm trying to find ways to do this. I suppose I have two right now, company stock and public stock via 401k/IRA, but I'd sure like to add rental income, it just take so much capital to get into that game.
3. Yes, but... the longer you live the more money you need. We're all likely going to die an incredibly slow, painful, and expensive death. Make sure you plan on it.
4. Worse. Investments. Ever. But as we approach round II of stagflation, I'm more and more thinking that have a good finance guy is important, as opposed to thinking I'm an expert and can do it myself.

 

[Big Sky Guy]

Good to hear someone soaking up experienced advice!

Mortgage free is a lot more complex than it appears on the surface. We had a choice when we built our place a few years ago. Pay most of it off with cash we had from the previous place and sale of an investment, or pay less and invest the rest.

We found a mortgage at 2 5/8%. We banked on money in retirement accounts doing a LOT better than averaging 2 5/8%. And we were sure right. Made around 3 times as much money in a fairly short time than we would have saved by not having a mortgage payment.

So the strategy should really be minimizing or eliminating high interest debt as much as possible, then comparing expected market performance against investment expected rates of return.

Not saying it isn't highly enticing to pay off a mortgage--but it's not always the wise decision for many folks who got in under lower interest rates than even moderate expected ROR's can bring in.

Many retirement planners talk about "baskets". Guaranteed income is one basket--if you aren't wealthy often the goal ought to be having that income be enough to get by--with the invested income the portion you can adjust withdrawals on based on life income estimates and yearly performance. Even better is when your guaranteed income sources have COLA's that help it keep up with inflation.

Our plan was to delay one of our SS withdrawals to increase the fixed basket portion for us and draw a bit more heavily from the retirment plan until that last SS is taken, then evaluate and probably decrease withdrawals a bit.

Excellent clarifying points to consider for sure. In my point above there was no investing going on as there was no "excess" funds from the refi(s). I *think* they went to things like: new roof, concrete and other "expensive" home improvements. I was too young for my mom to discuss this stuff back then, but even so I think I could have talked her through it and avoided her current predicament. Thankfully, my mom did at least get better interest rates each time. But it's pretty discouraging to be in year 25 of the home and still owe more than the purchase price of the home in 2000.

 

[Big Sky Guy]

Same here, though I'll never have the balls to go [almost] all-in on one stock like my Dad did in the 90's on amazon.
1. There is no such thing, my parents property taxes are more than their mortgage ever was.
2. I'm trying to find ways to do this. I suppose I have two right now, company stock and public stock via 401k/IRA, but I'd sure like to add rental income, it just take so much capital to get into that game.
3. Yes, but... the longer you live the more money you need. We're all likely going to die an incredibly slow, painful, and expensive death. Make sure you plan on it.
4. Worse. Investments. Ever. But as we approach round II of stagflation, I'm more and more thinking that have a good finance guy is important, as opposed to thinking I'm an expert and can do it myself.

I'll disagree a bit with you on 1. I can see taxes on our home being more than our original mortgage payment of $1300 was by my retirement fairly easily now after seeing property tax hike past couple years. However, that's still $1300 not coming out and allows one to *hopefully* pay those taxes at less of a burden to them. That's why I said "mortgage free" and not "paid off" as I've come to realize this exact difference you point to, but the person without a mortgage is still paying significantly less each month than the person with one is.

Can you explain 4? I'm assuming higher fees and lower returns or something? I currently have some funds in one, and while it doesn't do as well as my index funds have I didn't think it was a terrible investment? My mom's retirement is basically all in one and trying to get some advice from a financial advisor here, but curious what you've found. I just found this out this weekend when she shared how much it's gone down. I was under the impression they converted more conservatively closer to retirement and into something with fixed return like bonds once retired (hers is a 2020 fund fwiw btw). Not sure about a good finance guy, my mom selected "choose funds for me" for her 401k and this is the result. Probably not what you mean by a good finance guy but I think even with an advisor a person really needs to learn all they can and try to understand this stuff because the life you live someday literally depends on it lol.

 

[Irrelevant]

I'll disagree a bit with you on 1. I can see taxes on our home being more than our original mortgage payment of $1300 was by my retirement fairly easily now after seeing property tax hike past couple years. However, that's still $1300 not coming out and allows one to *hopefully* pay those taxes at less of a burden to them. That's why I said "mortgage free" and not "paid off" as I've come to realize this exact difference you point to, but the person without a mortgage is still paying significantly less each month than the person with one is.

Fair enough.

Can you explain 4? I'm assuming higher fees and lower returns or something? I currently have some funds in one, and while it doesn't do as well as my index funds have I didn't think it was a terrible investment? My mom's retirement is basically all in one and trying to get some advice from a financial advisor here, but curious what you've found. I just found this out this weekend when she shared how much it's gone down. I was under the impression they converted more conservatively closer to retirement and into something with fixed return like bonds once retired (hers is a 2020 fund fwiw btw). Not sure about a good finance guy, my mom selected "choose funds for me" for her 401k and this is the result. Probably not what you mean by a good finance guy but I think even with an advisor a person really needs to learn all they can and try to understand this stuff because the life you live someday literally depends on it lol.

IMO, and I'm definitely not an expert. With these funds, you miss out on all the growth, but are still subject to the losses. If you don't feel comfortable enough to select your own funds, then you should really hire a financial planner to pick for you. The one-size-fits-all approach with the planned retirement funds doesn't seem wise. I pulled stats a # of years ago, and it depends on who they were with, they performed really poorly compared to about everything else you could pick.

 

[mevertsen]

I'll disagree a bit with you on 1. I can see taxes on our home being more than our original mortgage payment of $1300 was by my retirement fairly easily now after seeing property tax hike past couple years. However, that's still $1300 not coming out and allows one to *hopefully* pay those taxes at less of a burden to them. That's why I said "mortgage free" and not "paid off" as I've come to realize this exact difference you point to, but the person without a mortgage is still paying significantly less each month than the person with one is.

Can you explain 4? I'm assuming higher fees and lower returns or something? I currently have some funds in one, and while it doesn't do as well as my index funds have I didn't think it was a terrible investment? My mom's retirement is basically all in one and trying to get some advice from a financial advisor here, but curious what you've found. I just found this out this weekend when she shared how much it's gone down. I was under the impression they converted more conservatively closer to retirement and into something with fixed return like bonds once retired (hers is a 2020 fund fwiw btw). Not sure about a good finance guy, my mom selected "choose funds for me" for her 401k and this is the result. Probably not what you mean by a good finance guy but I think even with an advisor a person really needs to learn all they can and try to understand this stuff because the life you live someday literally depends on it lol.

About number 4.

My wife wants nothing to do with investing. Her IRA is a target date fund.

Aggravating part is that it should have been closer to 70 percent equity by now I believe. Last report at the end of 2024 had it at 90 percent still.

It has taken quite a hit this round. But, we are not in a position we need to panic. I will try to convince her to move stuff more conservative as time goes on it if looks like the fund doesn't do it as planned.

 

[SAJ-99]

Somewhat of an unpopular opinion but this correction was gonna happen regardless of who became president. View attachment 366964

Where are your Fibonacci lines?

I’m not going to disagree much if at all, but justifying this Admins tariffs just isn’t possible without looking dumb. Bessent planned on refi’ing trillions in debt at a lower rate and market caught him. Now Fed is stuck with keeping rates high as another round of inflation looks likely.

 

[SAJ-99]

This is what i do daily for a living. Smart retirees will have diversification and other sources of income.

I suspect that some might just take joy in watching the current administration fail.

It’s not that simple, but probably just like the last two Dem admin, there are a lot of people rooting against them. For me, we have to reach a point where people stop falling for the con. Otherwise we make no real progress. There will be plenty of cons to follow this clown.

 

[406dn]

Earlier today, my wife and I were in Billings running a couple of errands. I took the time to visit Senator Tim Sheehy's office.

A couple of days before "Liberation Day" Sheehy was interviewed on CNN. He acknowledged there would be some pain, similar to a home remodel, but that after it was completed, things would be better.

The young man staffing his office is a younger clean cut Marine veteran. He gave me the chance to share my thoughts on the tariffs. When I told him how much my paper losses in the last three days were, I could see he was taken aback. I told him it took a long time to save that amount. I told him that I am not alone in losing a good chunk of their life's savings so quickly.

After that, I asked him how long had he been discharged from the Marines. It turns out that it is only a few weeks since he was discharged from the Marine Reserves. He told me that he would make certain that Senator Sheehy gets my feedback.

It won't change the course of human history, but you use the levers you have.