So thrilled with the market right now!

[joeea]

Quote:

Originally Posted by marko The way I look at it is that 2018 was artificially flat

Interesting term. Can you expand on why you wrote "artificially"?

[Amethyst]

It is not the word, but the openly expressed sentiment, that upsets the Fates.

Quote:

Originally Posted by W2R (No, this is not an April Fool's Day joke....) T As you may notice, I did not utter the dreaded "W" word in this post (as I did back in 2007), so maybe this time it will keep going up, and up, and up! How's your portfolio doing?

[foxfirev5]

If the market holds up today I'm taking a little sliver off the table. Some indicators can not be ignored.

[marko]

Quote:

Originally Posted by joeea Interesting term. Can you expand on why you wrote "artificially"?

Just the way I look at it. What I mean is that the year/economy/market was going along quite well until October. Then the Fed made statements and the market tumbled, in my view, needlessly. I don't see the Oct/Dec drop as a real reflection of the market's/economy's health or potential, just an artificial downdraft caused by some poorly timed statements.

Had the Fed made those comments in April of '18 we'd have had time to recover, as evidenced by our current surge/compensation.

Again, YMMV. Just my personal perspective.

[markelp]

*THIS* time is different! /s

Steady as she goes for us. We used some of the gains to pay off our mortgage ahead of schedule as the changes to tax benefits from the mortgage interest deduction don't outweigh the costs anymore. And we take living expenses out when needed while using that opportunity to rebalance allocation.

[24601NoMore]

Yes, the market's definitely doing better than expected so far this year - but just for "fun", compare portfolio value on 1/1/18 to now.

I'm up 9.2% YTD (excluding cash returns) on a conservative portfolio, but only up 2.8% total since 1/1/18..my International funds - especially International Value, really killed returns for me last year..(same portfolio was down 5.9% total for all of 2018)..

[DrRoy]

We had a 19+% correction in the S&P late last year, so that counts as a minimal bear market to me. Now is nice, but don't think it is the new normal as the bear will return.

[eytonxav]

That sounded an awful lot like a "whee". Watch out below!!!!

[imoldernu]

Dow Leader retires at the top of hs game.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/02/davi...-retiring.html

[Andre1969]

I just finished adding everything up this morning, and it looks like I'm up about 14% for 2019 YTD. Another 1%, and I'll be back to about where I was at the end of September 2018 (taking withdrawals and contributions since then into account).

Once I can get that additional 1%, I will consider myself "made whole" again, after the annoyance of that Oct-Dec 2018 timeframe.

[kgtest]

Quote:

Originally Posted by W2R (No, this is not an April Fool's Day joke....) The Dow may not be at a record high today, but at 26,258 it's getting downright stratospheric. My investment portfolio has hit an all time high once again today, despite being very conservatively invested, despite being retired and not in accumulation phase, and despite buying my wonderful Dream Home in the summer of 2015. I know that the stock market is a roller coaster, but still, I sure never expected the market to stay so strong for the past ten years. As you may notice, I did not utter the dreaded "W" word in this post (as I did back in 2007), so maybe this time it will keep going up, and up, and up! How's your portfolio doing?

Doing as best as it possibly can, up above all three indexes YTD so my horses are winning.

[marko]

Quote:

Originally Posted by W2R The Dow may not be at a record high today, but at.... it's getting downright stratospheric.

Just remember that every record day since the Dow began was probably considered 'stratospheric'. There was a day when Dow 800 was considered 'high'...and that was within our lifetimes!

[TDub]

Quote:

Originally Posted by COcheesehead Uh oh.

Exactly! Shhhh! [emoji6]

[Rustic23]

1987 - Down 22% in one day! I was in the market!

[Aerides]

I'm not gonna let myself be thrilled, because otherwise I'd have to be crestfallen during the dips.

I wasn't miserable in December, so I can't be ecstatic now!

[MRG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rustic23 1987 - Down 22% in one day! I was in the market!

I was too. I also worked at a large transfer agent doing support for their trading systems. Dog gone things broke in ways nobody had ever seen.

Who the heck heard of running out of a virtual resource. We had to pretend those existed, now I ran out?

[big-papa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by W2R (No, this is not an April Fool's Day joke....) The Dow may not be at a record high today, but at 26,258 it's getting downright stratospheric. My investment portfolio has hit an all time high once again today, despite being very conservatively invested, despite being retired and not in accumulation phase, and despite buying my wonderful Dream Home in the summer of 2015. I know that the stock market is a roller coaster, but still, I sure never expected the market to stay so strong for the past ten years. As you may notice, I did not utter the dreaded "W" word in this post (as I did back in 2007), so maybe this time it will keep going up, and up, and up! How's your portfolio doing?

Don't ruin it by pointing it out!!!!

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aerides I'm not gonna let myself be thrilled, because otherwise I'd have to be crestfallen during the dips. I wasn't miserable in December, so I can't be ecstatic now!

+1. In the quarter just past, we had some of our best returns - BUT the quarter before was just the opposite.

I wasn't concerned in Jan, and I'm not really thrilled now. As long as the ups outweigh the downs long term, we're fine. YMMV

[audreyh1]

Yeah.

Just whatever - if the retirement portfolio AA gets away from target enough, I'll be rebalancing.

Meanwhile I'm waiting for HSA funds to transfer. The equity market has done a drop, a run up, another drop, and another run up since we pulled out from funds waiting to transfer. At the same time interest rates and dropped considerably, but now climbing out of that significant drop.

You never know......

[Andre1969]

I was just thinking...if I can get another 1.2% increase in my return, on a dollar basis, that will make 2019 my best year, ever. However, does it really count, considering much of that was bouncing off of a low?

To put it in perspective, my best year ever, on a $ basis (rather than %), was 2017. But, it felt like a really great year, because it was a nice increase over a string of positive years (2012-2016...I actually lost a tiny bit in 2011).

Overall, I guess ponderings like this are relatively meaningless, as there are so many factors at play. And, over time it will be easier to keep breaking those dollars-made records, simply because the starting balance is (usually) growing over time, so it takes a smaller percent gain to get that bigger dollar amount.

But, let's say we're comparing percentages. Say, I made 20% in 2017, and 21% in 2019. Just looking at those percentages, most people would say 2019 was the better year. But, without looking at the whole picture, I guess it's hard to tell. It's probably only really meaningful, if you're comparing a new investor who just put their money in at the beginning of 2017, to a new investor who just put their money in at the beginning of 2019.


Anyway, don't pay too much to this, it's just kinda mindless rambling