kastnna wrote:

- quote -

I did read the rest of your post. I was simply pointing out one item
that weakened your own argument. If we believe that stock investors
should focus only on long-term (5-10 or more years) results, then we
correctly advise such investors to disregard short-term losses. But by
the same token, if they should not despair at short-term losses, neither
should they rejoice over, or even take solace in, short-term gains --
they're just as meaningless.

-Mark Bole

rick++ <rick303[at]hotmail.com> wrote:

- quote -

There was an item on NPR this morning that the GE money market fund was heavily
into sub prime paper and is underwater. They are NOT making up the losses and
offering shareholders 96 cents on the dollar.

-- Doug

On Nov 13, 6:47 pm, Mark Bole <ma...[at]pacbell.net> wrote:

- quote -

Of course I don't know if it will be true Wednesday or Thursday, that
was the point of the rest of my post you either omitted or neglected
to read. The only reason I mentioned the S&P was to show that for all
his "market timing" he ended up worse than a passive index investor.

I apologize if I did that poor of a job conveying my thoughts.

Mark Bole <makbo[at]pacbell.net> writes:

- quote -

Example from recent history on the handling of a bank which
goes under: NetBank.com.

The bank closed on Friday, Sept 28 at 3p. Customers
continued to have access to their deposits via debit
cards, checks and ATMS continuously. On Sun, Sept 30,
the website was active again. FDIC coverage kicked
in and 100% of things covered by FDIC plus 50% of
anything above that was moved - including account
history and records - over to ING Direct. Folks
continued to earn interest at locked-in CD rates
for CDs and other deposits started earning ING's
deposit rates immediately.

I don't know about your credit union, but at this
point, I expect ETrade's bank, at least, would be
handled just as smoothly if it came to that.

As far as I know, most of the problems which happen
with moving assets due to situations like this are
problems which arise when records are lost or screwed up.
We have, at this point, no reason to think that ETrade
has screwed up or lost records. They have other
problems - but those other problems shouldn't have
any impact on the FDIC and SIPC insured assets being
moved quickly and easily to another bank and brokerage
if it comes to that. Again, as far as we can tell
at the moment.

If ETrade was your *only* bank and brokerage account and
all your assets were there, I'd say get yourself a
backup bank and brokerage account established and move
some funds. If it's not, I'd worry a lot more about
my safety crossing the street to get a cup of coffee
than I would about accessing my assets there.


--
Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.
No HTML in E-Mail! -- http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
Are you posting responses that are easy for others to follow?
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting

Mark Bole wrote:
- quote -

You're absolutely correct, however I think kastnna's point was to put
the recent *very* short term loss in context for the market over the
last year. I went through a similar thought process in August when I
was watching all my positions tank. I was thinking that I was getting
killed until I looked at my year-to-date returns. Then I thought,
"Well, that's not so bad." Maybe the OP should do the same before
panicking.

Of course, if the market was down over the last year, I still wouldn't
want the OP to panic, but maybe you think that kastnna's argument could
lead to that kind of thinking?

-Will

- quote -

Ditto, todays NY Times lists four money market funds
underwater because of subprime investments, including
one from the largest US bank. Currently these losses
will be made up by their finnacial institutions. But should
there be a large number of losses, who knows.

kastnna wrote:

- quote -

You could say the same thing about most money market accounts and bank
CD's. Will your statement still be true on Wednesday or Thursday of
this week? If we are going to argue in favor of a long-term approach
(and I do), then citing short-term losses _or_ gains in the stock market
is irrelevant to the argument.

Ironically, regular savings are no longer so "safe" compared to the
stock market, at least as viewed from my seat. I have some cash
invested in CD's and money market accounts at a local credit union and
also E*Trade Bank. In the former case, the CU was placed into
conservatorship earlier this month, and today's news carried a story on
E*Trade's woes. While I am told the balances are "insured", will I get
all the interest I have earned, and how long will it take to actually
get the payout, if default by these institutions (unlikely, I hope)
actually happens.

-Mark Bole

On 2007-11-13, Parvardigar <parvardigar[at]yahoo.com> wrote:
- quote -

All that pundit talk is just meaningless noise, they do not know what
will happen. They are just promoting themselves. It is best to ignore it.

It is also wise to not take on too much risk, so if you are not
comfortable with holding so much stocks, you can sell some and get
into some lesser risk investments. Just make sure to ignore the
pundits.

i

Plenty of other pundits are pointing out that now is a right
time
to buy, not sell.

You must not judge your stock/mutual fund performance using
only a short term. Hindsight is of course 20/20 when
examining such short term stock results.

Stocks are for the long run. Wait at least ten years before
judging how well you did.

For a historical perspective on how investing for the long
run "pays," some day soon experiment with the little
interactive calculator at
http://moneychimp.com/articles/rando...me_horizon.htm.

Most importantly, presumably your capital gains and
dividends from your mutual funds are regularly re-invested.
This means that they are purchasing more shares at bargain
prices. This has a mathematically and financially profound
compounding effect. "Celebrate the lows." When the market is
back up, you make out like a bandit.

You might also consider what "owning stock" means, too. Here
is an essay on the financial integrity of owning a
diversified collection of stocks /for the long run/:
http://home.earthlink.net/~elle_navorski/id10.html .

On Nov 12, 6:16 pm, Parvardigar <parvardi...[at]yahoo.com> wrote:
- quote -

You know now that it would have been good to go to cash, but you
didn't then. If you base your decisions and time your reactions on
"monday morning quarterbacking" you will likely always find yourself
on the losing end.

Do you know right now which day the market is going to start heading
back up or will you know two weeks after it has happened? Are you even
sure that the market is going to continue its sell off (I'm not, but
it might and I don't really care either way)?

If your "401k is collapsing, and the investment dwindling" you should
consider revising your asset allocation and go with a buy and hold
strategy. The S&P 500 is still over 4% higher than it was a year ago.
You could have not bought or sold a single thing during the year and
still have made money. It's not as sexy to some, but neither is losing
money.

By the way, most 401k plans have limited investment options and you
mentioned mutual funds, so what exactly are you buying and selling
that has taken such a beating?

Good luck going forward.

On Nov 12, 4:16 pm, Parvardigar <parvardi...[at]yahoo.com> wrote:
- quote -

How many years before you retire? If you are close to retirement
maybe you should starting moving more into fixed income type
investment. But if you can't stand the times when the stock market
goes down, maybe you shouldn't be investing in the stock market at
all.

BTW if I could predict the future I'd be sipping a tall drink on a
tropical island myself, instead of wasting my time here.

On Nov 12, 7:16 pm, Parvardigar <parvardi...[at]yahoo.com> wrote:
- quote -

Don't watch.

Parvardigar <parvardigar[at]yahoo.com> wrote:

- quote -

When Macy's has a sale, everyone rushes to buy. When Wall Street has a sale,
everyone rushes to sell. The guys at Macy's are right.

There is no way of knowing whether or not the market is going to keep going down
or not. If the pundits knew anything, they wouldn't be earning their money
punditing. They'd be busy trading stocks.

Keep your eye on the long term and think about how your new 401k investments are
buying bargains.

-- Doug

If you are going to invest in the stock market,
you must invest for more than five years.
Anyone whose invested for more than five years,
(decades for many of the people in this group)
will have seen several of these up and down cycles.
In the long run the market follows the long term economy
which has has been up for the past 70 years.

I'm watching these business channels and the pundits say the market
will keep correcting, crashing. There remedy is sell off. And wait.
All I know is my 401k is collapsing, and the investment is dwindling.
I can see the flexiblity in trading stocks. In and out in tough
markets.
I'm thinking had I traded out into the money market two weeks ago I'd
be secure. Now I wonder -is it too late to move the mutual fund
positions into money market. Do I remain committed, and watch as the
market in the weeks ahead keeps collapsing? Date this day in the cycle
of market corrections November 12 2007