Over two years ago (when the dollar was consistently tanking) I put some money in VDMIX (Vanguard Developed Markets Index) as a hedge against the dollar’s fall. That fund had been doing well for years. Well it didn’t make any difference–it’s over 40% down from when I bought like everything else now!!! It’s in an IRA, and I have no idea what to do–hold on in case it improves, or get out now and park the money in a CD or MMA within the IRA for awhile so I don’t lose it all.
Surely there are other people on this forum in the same boat–have you decided to stay in the market or cut your losses?
My wife and I are in our early 30’s and started IRAs a few years ago. We’ve maxed them out each year so far. They’ve taken a huge beating like the rest of the market. I’m trying to be patient as I know we have the time to wait out the market. Our funds are worth about 1/2 of what we put in them, but if things don’t get better in a few years we have more to worry about as a country than the few thousand we’re down in our IRAs. I’m staying in.
My wife’s 401K has bled out 45%. I switched everything to a fixed fund and a stable money market for now. Instead of losing money, she’s made $2.40 in one day!! :beer :beer. I’ll switch it back when the market starts to improve. Since I don’t have control over the actual investments, I can just keep it preserved for now.
That’s basically what I did–moved most of it to an MMA temporarily.
I worked (past tense) with a guy who lost %87 in 2008…To make matters worse he had a wife who doesn’t work,3 kids,2 houses and way too many cars…Can you imagine losing %87 of your savings?..This guy used to be well off…Greed killed this guy…Now he has one home on the market and he will have to accept 1/3 of his old salary if he expects to find a job anywhere in the next 2 years…This stock market has taken down the wealthiest people and absolutely killed them in the process…I can’t tell you how many horror stories I have heard,its sad…Funny thing is that no one feels bad for the rich guy that goes broke…This market and Madoff has changed the course of many retirements,I can promise you that…Very sad scenario for all,rich and poor and the in between…
I’m an IT consultant and one of my clients (attorney that does a lot of trust/estate work) had some of his clients lose a bunch of money in the Madoff mess. He was just on a conference call the other day sorting out some stuff with it. Really sucks if you had a lot of exposure to it. I heard about a guy that had half of his money invested with Madoff, the other half invested in some mutual fund…problem was the fund invested with Madoff. All of his money GONE!
Had to be a hedge fund…Which is more likely to have invested with Madoff…Typical mutual funds are not allowed to farm out their assets to private equity groups like Madoff…The feeder funds were the suppliers of an immense amount of Madoff money which baffles me…Anyone with a an inkling of market knowledge had to know this guy was on borrowed time…But my accountant also had clients tied to Madoff…
You are probably right, I heard the news clip when I was working on something on my computer…so I wasn’t really listening that carefully. I usually have the TV on when I’m working on stuff for school and about 30% hits the brain, the other just bounces off.
I don’t understand the psychology of people who invested all their money with one man (Madoff).
Many people simply thought they were doing the right thing or didn’t know better…Many people still to this day have a substantial amount of their retirement in the company stock…Which as Enron taught us is to not have all your eggs in one basket…I have another close friend who is a decently upper end exec at Citigroup…His retirement portfolio was worth a few mill in 2007…Now I’m not sure if it’s worth $100,000 total…People get greedy and lose sight…I still remember the time he and I debated over why I sold my C at $43 a share because I didn’t feel it participating with the market on a large up day…Its a shame that most investors were mauled instead of the traders…At least traders can swallow loss better,but the mom and pop investor is ready to dive out a window over this market…
Some of these people were self-made, so they had to be at least somewhat shrewd in order to earn their money in the first place–I guess they threw caution to the wind once they had it and wanted to gain access to the inner circles of the Palm Beach country club? (or wherever else Madoff was lurking!)
Some of these people were self-made, so they had to be at least somewhat shrewd in order to earn their money in the first place–I guess they threw caution to the wind
It was GREED for many,but the older retirees were using Madoff for income/returns…The stress of having to make returns in the investment business is huge,thats how these feeder funds got lured into this mess…For many years I worked at a market neutral firm and even those guys have been wiped out and they were hedged…Its the leverage and redemptions that keep hurting this market and investors…I talked about it about 2 weeks ago how my office and some friends office’s were inundated with calls for redemptions…People want out at any cost,they are hitting the bid…These often lead to great buy opps but like my buddy said today…We will get a %10 up day soon but will we go down another %10 before?..Very tough call here but for the longterm investor I cant see how you can go wrong over a long time frame with entering a diminutive portion of their savings here into equities…I would say that %10 is a fair amount to put into the markets here…
Lets be for real,cash is king right now…The people with available cash on hand are making money in this investment environment…Forget the equities markets…Cash is king and it always will be…