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Old 09-16-2008, 06:30 PM   #41
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We're two years retired and living entirely on our assets. I do have health care through work, but I'm currently paying over $600/month (two of us), so it's not free. I continued working long enough to be included mostly for the guaranteed coverage, since we both have pre-existing conditions that would make it hard to find affordable coverage on our own.

I don't have a clue where my portfolio is, other than down. I don't like to look, although as you may know from another thread I am freaking a bit about when to lump sum or start DCAing a fairly decent chunk of cash. But I have no intention selling out anything just because of the current market gyrations. I'm more interested in figuring out how to migrate my existing CFA held investments into my Vanguard account, without giving the gov't any more in taxes than I can avoid.

And I echo the advice to the OP. Don't sell when things are down. I went through the 2000 bubble burst, and it was very disheartening. But over time most things recovered, or at least did much better than they would have if I had sold and left them in cash.
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Old 09-16-2008, 06:37 PM   #42
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Yesterday the Dow lost around 505 points.

On March 18th of this year, the Dow went up around 420 points.

Just thought that might help some of us, in some way.
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Old 09-16-2008, 11:13 PM   #43
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Originally Posted by FIREdreamer View Post
Still throwing as much as I can to the market even if it feels like speeding towards a wall. But... I am keeping the faith.
If Americans don't buy these quality companies at the prices they are selling at now, foreigners will. As long as we don't buy some financial firm that turns out to be on thin ice we should do well with good stocks at current levels.

There are still large pools of money in the world looking for return. Once this turns we might see some real fireworks. Look at the huge premiums some buyouts have had. BUD for one.

America is a very successful industrial economy that produces healthy exports of quality goods.

So I really don't think we need to be frightened- and this is from a guy who is almost entirely in stocks or junky bonds and who has no safety net.

Until the last few days I was still up a little since October- but these last days have taken care of that. My only wish is that I had more dry powder, and more brains.

Ha
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Old 09-17-2008, 07:08 AM   #44
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Several people have asked me how my TSP is doing or how much money have I lost. I haven't looked at my TSP balance in a few months. I also have an inherited IRA that I use for vacation money, I've been afraid to look at that. I figure I'll just keep plugging away, I turn 39 next month so I have over 10 years to go until I'm eligible to retire. I'm hoping in 10 years I'll be thinking back how great it was to fill up my TSP with the fire sale.

There are a few guys in my office who wanted to retire soon but are delaying because of losses.
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Old 09-17-2008, 07:19 AM   #45
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Several people have asked me how my TSP is doing or how much money have I lost. I haven't looked at my TSP balance in a few months. I also have an inherited IRA that I use for vacation money, I've been afraid to look at that. I figure I'll just keep plugging away, I turn 39 next month so I have over 10 years to go until I'm eligible to retire. I'm hoping in 10 years I'll be thinking back how great it was to fill up my TSP with the fire sale.

There are a few guys in my office who wanted to retire soon but are delaying because of losses.
My TSP hasn't lost much at all, since I am mostly in G Fund which is guaranteed not to lose money (and for those who don't know, its availability to us is part of our benefits package). My equities are in my other accounts.

On the other hand, I won't have the big gains you will have due to filling up your TSP with equity funds when prices are low! I am going to retire next year or I probably would be doing that as well. I did it during the 2000-2002 downturn and made out rather nicely once we hit the stronger 2003-2006 economy. Even though I haven't lost much at present, I will lose in the sense of not seeing those gains in my TSP in the future. I will see those gains in my equities in other accounts, though.
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Old 09-17-2008, 10:01 PM   #46
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essentially flat ytd. reallocated to 100% cash in june/july and have been day trading / swing trading with mixed results.

have been up to 70% equities earlier in the year but got out of ags/commodities (especially after ziggy bought into USO). Been nibbling at momentum plays but am and have been flat for several months. Can't handle the volatility right now and risk/reward in not in my favor.

Thought that my net worth will be sufficient for ER but given recent market activities, I am going back to work in October. I need a bigger cushion to withstand these types of markets.

would suggest that folks review their risk tolerance and see if it makes sense to reallocate given the current volatility?

best of luck to all.
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Old 09-17-2008, 11:44 PM   #47
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I just feel sick! Must not watch news, must go to yahoo page, must not go past a newspaper
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Old 09-18-2008, 06:47 AM   #48
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Originally Posted by haha View Post

So I really don't think we need to be frightened- and this is from a guy who is almost entirely in stocks or junky bonds and who has no safety net.

Until the last few days I was still up a little since October- but these last days have taken care of that. My only wish is that I had more dry powder, and more brains.

Ha
Ha, this one for you.

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Old 09-18-2008, 08:20 AM   #49
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hope this is not a duplicate post...i was midway thru composing and it went kaplooey...somewhere...

being a glutton for punishment..i checked again...to see just how my AA plan is working in really ugly times. sometimes the alleged "low point" can be instructive as well as painful.

down 12.42% YTD
10 yr return still hanging at a positive 6.22%
AA is 54/44/2, stocks/bonds/cash, all mutual funds including mucho TE muni bond funds, and US govt bonds

negative numbers on domestic and foreign stocks giving me pause...but staying the course. hang in there, folks.
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Old 09-18-2008, 08:30 AM   #50
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AA 75/25 stocks/bonds YTD down 22% Heavy on precious metals and natural resource stocks. Went from the penhouse to the outhouse between 2007-08
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Old 09-18-2008, 09:02 AM   #51
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I haven't been watching the markets but Sarah just informed me that this market sucks... so I checked my 401(k). Down 18% YTD. I might be curious enough to check all of my accounts later, I'm sure I'm out of line enough for a rebalance.

I don't count my cash position as it's short-term (3-5 year horizon) money and not part of my investment portfolio... if I counted that for investment purposes, then I'm sure I'm down a lot less as we're putting a significant percentage into cash.

I'm sure I'm just insane, but I'm sleeping pretty well at night. Then again, we have zero debt, almost no fixed expenses (rent is $500 and I can cut back on eating out if needed), no kids, and three jobs between the two of us... no danger of underemployment, just trying to fight off overemployment right now (side job turned into a 40 hr/week deal for the short term)
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Old 09-18-2008, 09:05 AM   #52
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I'm sure I'm just insane, but I'm sleeping pretty well at night. Then again, we have zero debt, almost no fixed expenses (rent is $500 and I can cut back on eating out if needed), no kids, and three jobs between the two of us... no danger of underemployment, just trying to fight off overemployment right now (side job turned into a 40 hr/week deal for the short term)
That's a good point. I do worry a little bit about the employment situation, which is why my wife has started looking for w*rk with decent benefits in case I lose mine. We have no debt, the house is paid for, and we have about a year's worth of expenses in the emergency fund. I guess that makes it a bit easier to not be freaked out -- though I would be a little more secure and placid if my wife had an income stream and a backup set of bennies.
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Old 09-22-2008, 09:21 PM   #53
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75/25 stocks/bonds
-12.8% YTD
-18.8% 12 months
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Old 09-22-2008, 10:43 PM   #54
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What tools are you using to track your portfolio performance? I am still accumulating for another few years. I just look at Morningstar and see whether the box is green or red. So far the box for returns over the last three years is still green even though the others are fluctuating wildly, so I am not changing anything. In fact I made a math mistake figuring out how much to put into my 457 plan and am adding extra until the end of the year to make sure I make the maximum contribution, so I guess I am "buying low".
However, such a lackadaisical method will be totally inadequate when I actually need to use the nest egg for living expenses. It makes a difference when money is withdrawn and whether from equities or fixed income and so on, plus rebalancing. How do you keep track of all this? I have Quicken but I have only used it to track my checking accoount. Is it a good tool for managing a portfolio too?
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Old 09-23-2008, 03:02 AM   #55
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I made my own

I created my own program using Excel.
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Old 09-23-2008, 03:39 AM   #56
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I just feel sick! Must not watch news, must go to yahoo page, must not go past a newspaper
If you're gonna be fair add this to your list: must not spend endless hours hanging around on this site.
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Old 09-23-2008, 07:36 AM   #57
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Haven't looked in the past few days, but it ain't perty...
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Old 09-23-2008, 07:59 AM   #58
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I'm doing that.
As I said earlier I think people are making a psychological mistake comparing it to the high.
Agree. Fortunately, here again my natural laziness has saved me, since I compute my balances so infrequently that I don't know what my high water mark is/was. I generally only look at the balance when I do my taxes--once per year. As it happens, I was tuning up our budget spending plan spreadsheet the other day, so I had to calculate everything. I was surprised our equity-heavy (70%) portfolio hadn't taken a bigger hit--we're down approx 5% from March 08.

Another place laziness saved me: Last year I just put my Solo401K $$ contribution into the default money market holding account at Fidelity, I never got around to putting it into equities. I'll do that soon. Am I really a dirty market timer if it happens by mistake?
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Old 09-23-2008, 08:42 AM   #59
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I'm down 3.3% YTD. I worked to mid-year and have been living off my portfolio since then. AA is 39/7/39/15 (equities, international equities, bond, cash). It's a little out of whack, but I won't rebalance until January (when the non-cola pension kicks in).

Social Security is many years away.

-- Rita
I dont understand how some peoples portfolios are still doing so well (relatively) even when they are diversified like this....

I calculate this 39/7/39/15 portfolio to be down about 7.2% as opposed to the -3.3% return posted here.

I used these assumptions:

39% VFINX (-16.5% YTD)
7% VWIGX (-22.5% YTD)
39% PTRAX (+1.1% YTD)
15% Money Market (paying 3.5%)

It seems to me that this guy should have a bigger loss than posted
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Old 09-23-2008, 09:12 AM   #60
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I thought I was down 7% for the year based on the current tracking through my brokerage account, however, after checking the numbers from December 2007 I am flat for the year.


I made some trades that I failed to account for as I was up a fair bit in June and rebalanced. It's definitely instructive to use past portfolio numbers than read your account balances, especially when it's all red
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