Your behavior during latest market downturn ?

[Throwdownmyaceinthehole]

Made Roth contribution with excess cash, did a back door Roth conversion and sold an after tax fund that has been languishing with a loss. Drank some really good Pinot.

 

[dallas27]

funded wifes and my roths for the year, bought Thursday and Friday.

 

[growing_older]

Did nothing. I rebalanced about six weeks ago, so it's tempting to think I could have bought back in at lower prices, but my plan is to rebalance every 18 month or so, or if things get more than 10% out of whack. This wasn't even close to that band.

 

[FIREd]

There was a market downturn?

+1

So far, I consider this downturn to be a non-event. I bought a small amount of international equities on the dollar strength, but that's it.

 

[Birchwood]

Did a lot of reading, both about the financial cycle and stock picking.
I learn not to react to volatile markets. I may buy some stocks on the dips and sell some shares of a stock that has appreciated thru the years.

 

[Gumby]

Technically, I guess I was a buyer, since the young wife and I buy stock every two weeks through our 403b and 457 plans. But other than that, I've done nothing since buying a load of SDY on August 1.

 

[Live And Learn]

I had been thinking about my AA lately and felt that 50/30/20 might not be "ideal" and wanted to get to 55 / 35 / 10 so I made that happen during the blip. I still have a few years worth of expense in cash and short term bonds to ride out most of a larger downturn during my first few years of ER so I wasn't worried about investing more at this point. The blip just gave me a little extra courage.

 

[Looking4Ward]

I exchanged a bond fund on a day it was up for Wellington on a day it was down and effectively changed my AA from 60/40 to 65/35.

 

[Donzo]

I bought some VG S&P. I felt to heavy in VG Inflation Protected Treasury. Switched about 5% of portfolio in a 401K account (no tax issues). Bought the VIPIX several years ago and am sick of the low returns - now inflation will take off . I will have no need for this money for many years and decided to go more aggressive...kind of like my 3rd bucket, if you will .

I will try and sit on my hands for the rest of the year.

 

[Lsbcal]

I don't buy on hunches but don't sell either. Just set it at 65% equities, lop it off if it goes higher but now it's down to 63.7%.

PE ratios (and PE10) come down as the Price comes down so I'm not likely to sell in the near future. I do have a plan though based on backtesting to 1920's. Mostly it is buy-hold.

 

[scrabbler1]

I did nothing. I'm still within my rebalance bands, so there wasn't anything to do.

+1. In my IRA, I went from slightly over 50/50 to slightly under 50/50, always within my range not to rebalance.

 

[bison74]

+1. Still within my rebalance bands also.

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[LOL!]

I tax-loss harvested and sold some of the replacement securities at a profit. Then exchanged some bond fund shares for equity fund shares. I intend to purchase more equities soon.

 

[Major Tom]

I haven't done anything. My AA is 60/35/5 stocks/bonds/cash (in reality, probably closer to 60/37/3 but I don't want to split hairs). I don't know how the recent correction (or whatever it turns out to be) has changed that as I haven't checked my balances. If my AA gets too far away from my target for too long, then I'll rebalance but otherwise, doing nothing is beguilingly easy.

 

[EastWest Gal]

I did nothing. No need to overreact to an expected correction.


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[48Fire]

I was very heavy in cash, waiting for a correction or crash. So I bought about 15% of my portfolio.

 

[clifp]

I sold last month anticipating a correction. I was surprised it happened so quickly. I used options to buy back at about S&P 1700, but I am still sitting on about 3x my normal cash level anticipate further pullbacks.

 

[redduck]

What I did was not a choice offered in the poll. I traded some losers for other stocks. This allowed me to book some losses for tax purposes.

I added to a couple of dividend stocks during the downturn and plan to add more if the drop continues.

I did what NW-Bound and Lakedog did.

 

[papadad111]

I

1. moved 100 percent of a deferred comp package to cash in late September that was up 8 pct on the year. It is tax deferred so no tax impact as I move it. I started getting back in with two buys across the last week. The value of the account is currently within 1 percent of September peak balance. I am 85 percent back in equities with 15 percent to go.

2. I took half of my current 15 percent cash position in taxable accounts - now down to 7 percent - making buys in 3x leverages oil, regular sp500 and a total market ETFs. That taxable account is down approx 8 percent from recent highs. I considered selling in sept as I did in the deferred comp account but the tax implication would have been too large a tax bill for what I hope is a typical 10 percent correction.

Overall AA is 92% equities and 8%cash. It is high by my historic standards of 70/30 but there is really no better place to park cash at this point due than equities to the near zero interest rates. 10 year below 2 percent. Crazy low ... Cash still represents 3 years of lIving expense which gets me about through a crisis if one unfolds.

 

[ls99]

One of these days I'll have to look. But by the time I get around to it it may be Whhheeee.

 

[robertf57]

I did nothing except continue to contribute to 401a, 457, and defined benefit plan ( I think... not certain if a contribution occurred during the talking head frenzy or not!)

 

[Al in Ohio]

Its not really a downturn as much as a return of volatility that you previously forgot about. Its back.


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[NW-Bound]

The only thing I hate about these volatility periods is when I think about all that potential gain that I could have had, if I knew to buy and sell just right.

 

[Cat-tirement]

I did almost nothing. Since I had been putting off 2014 Roth contributions, I made those this week for both DW and myself, putting them into stock funds that were down to almost the level they were at early this year. Since I RE'd last month, this was my last Roth contribution as a regular earner. However, I expect to have a spousal contribution next year, as DW will still be working for a bit longer.

 

[stephenson]

Had some cash I had not moved from Fidelity to Vanguard ...was not prepared, so got some advice here ...thought about it awhile and since I didn't have any health care focus funds, bought Fidelity health care ETF FHLC.


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