Is anyone staying the course?

[street]

ooh. ooh. mr kotter! mr kotter!!

haven’t sold anything and have been buying mutual funds.

LOL! l like that one a lot! Was one of my favorite shows.

 

[rodi]

I'm staying the course. My BIL called the other day for financial advice... before he even had his question out of his mouth I cut him off... told him that he needs to just rebalance when things get out of whack - but stay the course. He laughed because SIL (his wife) had been telling him to pull out cash. He knew what I was going to say - and I beat him to it by not even letting him ask the question. We both chuckled over this.

I did discuss with him whether it made sense to pre-position some cash for an expected relocation home purchase... but he said that's still several years in the future.

 

[rodi]

I posted a poll.

https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/poll-stay-the-course-or-sell-it-all-may-2020-a-103829.html#post2428424

 

[street]

^ thanks rodi that is great and I voted. That is funny!

 

[Jeffman52]

Staying the course. Was up 30% last year so current as of this morning -7% doesn't make me blink and re-enforces the idea of not letting fear cloud your judgement.

 

[Badger]

Staying the course. I made all my adjustments the end of last year before things went south. Sleeping much better now.



Cheers!

 

[targatom2019]

I retired last year but still see no market risk at all looking 10-15 years down the road. I stayed the course the last 25 years, got 96% in equities and still up over 350%. I got 4 years of expenses in cash now then just let the equities ride.

use the cash for expenses when we see Mr. Bear and fill the cash account when we see Mr. Bull...….easy peasy and getting ready to hunt for tuna in Socal !!!!

 

[2018]

yep, I'm not changing anything either ...


If you believe in what you bought why would you sell now ? How is this any different than previous dips ?

 

[Sunset]

I'm not sure I have 15 yrs left to wait...

I know I would find it disappointing to wait 10 yrs so that I can be back to the level I was at Feb 2020.

However, within our taxable accounts, I'm staying the course as selling has taxation issues if sold a lot.

Within IRA/ROTH I have reduced, or sold calls on some of the market to covert stocks to cash or generate cash (and risk losing the stock at a high price).

 

[OldShooter]

Funny I see no market risk at all looking 10-15 years down the road. I stayed the course the last 25 years, got 96% in equities and still up over 350%.

+1

We have over 100 years of market history with a steady upward trend in real dollars. Zigs and zags along the way, admittedly, but a steady trend. It's about as close to a sure thing as we get in this world.

People in the accumulation phase should rejoice at market declines and enjoy the benefits of DCA. People in the withdrawal phase just need a bucket or an AA that protects them from SORR and, ideally, an equity allocation that allows them to benefit somewhat from the trend.

Nothing wrong with people who bail in bad times and buy back in, though. Odds say that they will not do as well as us buy/hold types, but what they do get is avoidance of a possible worst case that is unacceptable to them. But it's kind of like buying insurance, that avoidance is costs them, but hopefully an acceptable amount.

 

[Marita40]

Staying the course. AA 50/50. Plan to retire in December.

 

[tdv2]

Staying the course. As I have said before in other posts, I am maintaining my exposure to my chosen asset classes. Made a rebalance adjustment in my IRA accounts in March to true things up. I'm somewhere close to 60/40 give or take a point or 2.

 

[Time2]

Staying the course with a little playtime, I sold 15% or 20% on 2-28 and bought it back 3-25. I took advantage of what I thought was a downturn.
I got lucky and it paid off, I bought back two days after the bottom, 17% cheaper than I sold. Actually better than that, but to many details to explain.
I don't know what possessed me at the time, I've been a 35 year Buy and hold guy.

At this moment my AA is 70/30, 70% stocks and a mix of other things, bond, land, cash etc. We are officially retired 19 months.

 

[almost there]

Looks good to me...................

 

[VFK57]

Staying the course with a little playtime, I sold 15% or 20% on 2-28 and bought it back 3-25. I took advantage of what I that was a downturn.




This is a wash sale.

 

[tdv2]

Staying the course with a little playtime, I sold 15% or 20% on 2-28 and bought it back 3-25. I took advantage of what I that was a downturn.




This is a wash sale.

You can't say this for certain without more information. Need to know if what was sold on 2-28 was at a loss and if what was purchased back on 3-25 was substantially similar.

 

[pb4uski]

.... How is this any different than previous dips ?

soon-to-be 15% unemployment vs a peak of 10% unemployment during the Great Recession might be one small difference.

 

[Time2]

Staying the course with a little playtime, I sold 15% or 20% on 2-28 and bought it back 3-25. I took advantage of what I that was a downturn.




This is a wash sale.

Not in tax deferred accounts.

 

[24601NoMore]

ER'd (me - 56, DW - 61) and are sitting at ~20% equities - which is ~20% higher than we'd like at this point.

That said, we're "kinda" staying the course - because when I look at our YTD return numbers, they're ugly. And I was never one to sell low and buy high.

If we get back to Dow 25K, I plan to go to a max of 10% equities.

Pretty sure the virus is going to drive us to Great Depression 2.0 - hope to be totally wrong, but we shall see.

Unfortunately, I was reaching for Yield on our bond funds and have some (OK, too much) Emerging Markets, Foreign Bond, Mortgage-Backed Securities and Corporate Bond funds..I see VBTLX (heavy Treasury allocation) is up YTD, but even my bond funds are down ~10% on average.

Lesson learned on that..

 

[Skyward1]

I pretty much stayed the course but I have bought into the decline a little. I was approx. 50/23/27 at the beginning of this and I'm currently at 56/18/26. I bought bonds for the first time late last year and plan to move more of them back into equities if the market declines significantly from here. Two years from retirement.

 

[COcheesehead]

Staying the course with a little playtime, I sold 15% or 20% on 2-28 and bought it back 3-25. I took advantage of what I that was a downturn.




This is a wash sale.

It depends....

 

[Mickslick]

Staying the course, shored everything up a few weeks ago to realign to 60/40. The 60/40rs were getting a lot of hate and disdain from the financial "pros" last year up through March, now it looks pretty good again, it has served me well through 2009 2010 and is giving me the ballast it is designed to do through these past few months.


When the market first tanked in March, and then realizing that we are purposely destroying the economy, I ran some analysis anticipating a 40% to 70% drop in the markets, and determined that, though it would be very painful, my AA and other asset strategies would likely pull through, especially if I don't panic. BTW, I still fully anticipate that there is a high possibility that we will go through a 40 to 60% drop over the next two years or so once the reality of what has been done catches up.

 

[Dd852]

Staying the course at 60/40. With that allocation our bonds plus cash equal 11+ years of annual spend, ie until I’m 71 and DW 75. I figure at that age I could start selling stocks no matter where they were in value to cover the rest of our lives. And that doesn’t even count any dividends annually (which currently cover 62% of spend ) or SS. So yes; I can’t see gaining anything significant to me by changing strategy.

 

[carnivalday]

Staying the course. Have a cash position that I keep for expenditures I know will be upcoming (washer and dryer; 18 years old, the clock is ticking. Need a new vehicle, but can't decide what. Have 2013 Tacoma with 76k miles on it, but want something new). The rest in dividend paying stocks. Im living on SS and about 50% of the dividends, the excess goes back into more stock.

 

[nhcycling]

Staying the course.