As an example, the MDY shares I bought right after 9/11 have grown by
60%, including the hit it's taken in the last 6 months.

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I echo all the other posters' advice to date. Two other
things I would add to help you better understand long term
investing (such as in an IRA):

1.
Experiment sometime with the tool at
http://www.moneychimp.com/articles/r...me_horizon.htm .
It helps make the point that short term volatility
historically has been high, but long term volatility (and so
risk) has been lo . If you just can't sand the swings, sure,
cash out. But I advise reading more about stocks and bonds
before doing so. Lurk here and at other free online
financial fora for several months as well.

2.
Maybe improve your understanding of asset allocation using
the free online tools linked at
http://ellessite.blogspot.com/2008/0...llocation.html
. Notice how the tools change allocation based on one's time
horizon, personal risk tolerance (as Joe said, can you
sleep?)

Emphatically, and as Elizabeth and others pointed out,
remember that your reinvested dividends are now purchasing
stocks at bargain prices. Finance Professor Jeremy Siegel,
for one, trumpets the compounding effect of continuous
investing and holding for the long run. His book _Stocks for
the Long Run_ is a popular tome on investing. He has updated
its concepts somewhat in more recent books.

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On 2008-03-08 09:25:43 -0800, btroiano[at]earthlink.net said:

- quote -

A good plan might be to stop tracking your investment altogether. Put
it away and foreget about it. Let a few years go by without even
looking at the figures. Keep on letting the years pass. That way you
can reduce anxiety and avoid the temptation to sell whenever the market
declines. If you must open the envelopes for one reason or another, for
example, to report something on your tax return, let someone
else--wife, husband, friend--take care of the paper work. In a decade
or two when you do open the envelope yourself, you will be pleasantly
surprised.

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btroiano[at]earthlink.net wrote:

- quote -

Markets are down. They do that.

Do you think you can predict when markets will rise and fall?

- quote -

If you are invested in the stock market, then your horizon should be
years and years, not months and months.

- quote -

What do you mean by "the account"? The Roth itself? Or the investments
in the Roth? If you pulled money out of the Roth, you can't put it back
(at least not after a fairly short period). You should always fund the
Roth regardless, even if it's just into a money market fund.

You haven't told us what you've invested in. It sounds like you're
halfway down the road to "buy high and sell low." That's a bad road,
turn around and come back.

- quote -

Why? Do you want the markets to get high again before you buy?


You haven't given us enough information to work with. What is your
investing horizon? What investments do you have in the Roth? What else
do you have?




Brian

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btroiano[at]earthlink.net writes:

- quote -

What, exactly, are you investing in in your Roth IRA? Maybe you need
to reconsider your risk tolerance, or maybe you just need to find
better funds or more diversified investments.

- quote -

Why would you think that selling low and buying high is a way to make
money? Why would you want to throw away the tax advantages by
withdrawing your money from a tax-sheltered account?

- quote -

Why do you think it's better to save money in an account where you get
no tax advantage from doing so, rather than in an account where your
profits are tax-free?

-Sandra the cynic

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btroiano[at]earthlink.net wrote:

- quote -

This is nowhere close to "horrible". It's just so long since we've seen "not
good" that it is easy to confuse with "horrible".


- quote -

The key to successful investing is to let your head rule, not your emotions.

- quote -

When someone asked Andrew Carnegie how to make money in the stock market, he
answered "Buy low and sell high". What he didn't say is that that means you
have to buy when everyone else is selling and sell when everyone else is buying.

Rather than sell now ("sell low") and buy later ("buy high"), you should
consider increasing your investments rather than decreasing them. Assuming
this is long term money, you're going to be buying bargains.

Have faith, my friend. There is a turn around out there some place, but no one
knows when until it is past.

-- Doug

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<btroiano[at]earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:1c8616de-248c-46b4-96b2-a9cee2686a7b[at]s13g2000prd.googlegroups.com...

- quote -

It's a difficult time, to be sure. The market was down similarly 2000-2002,
as Joe mentions. It was at this time that my husband and I were able to
significantly increase our salary deferrals and IRA contributions. As such,
we were buying funds when they were on sale.

Buy low/sell high. Joe suggests you look at which funds you are using. Yes,
your balance is down, but you will need to have considerable more saved
before you retire. Consider this an opportunity to learn more about how your
money is invested, in addition to the opportunity to buy when your funds are
"on sale."

Elizabeth Richardson

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btroiano[at]earthlink.net wrote:
- quote -

You don't mention what it's invested in. But you are down 27%. The
market (as measured by the S&P 500) is 'only' about 17% off it peak.
With regular deposits and a bit of diversification, one should be down
from the peak somewhat less than that.

I'd suggest you keep investing into a diversified, low cost stock fund,
and learn to tolerate this type of market. As I learned in 1987, it was
better to see $20K or so lose 30% from the August peak to raise my
understanding of market volatility. I lived through the 2000-2002 market
without losing sleep. (To be sure, I lost money, just not sleep.)

JOE

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I need some serious IRA investing advice. Basically, becasue of the
horrible state of our economy, the balance of my Roth IRA is nowhere
near the actual amount I have invested over the last four years.
Basically, what it comes down to is that since January 2004, I have
invested $7650, but my current balance is only $5589.12.

What should I do here? I know they say to hang in there because it
will go up and down, but it has been like this for months and months
now, and it pains me to see my hard-earned money funding this account
each month and going nowhere.

What is your advice? Should I close the account and re-open it when
our economy has actually gotten better? Should I leave it open and
just drastically reduce what I'm putting into it and actually put the
rest into a savings somewhere to be added later?

Any well-informed advice anyone has would be much appreciated. Thanks!

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