Anyone wanna take a break from Ferguson and shoot down this FB post?

[LaydeeBug]

Greetings from behind the grief curtain...I still break down every day, but they are at least getting better (or I am getting used to breaking down, lol) A repug won the gov here in MD, and my local district was COMPLETELY SWEPT by the GOP. I am a little bit shocked by that, honestly. All of that is tantamount to why I feel like shooting down this message from my so-called "middle of the road" uncle:

I believe that middle class Americans wealth increases more slowly than the wealthier Americans because of manipulation of the stock market. If your 401K is tied up long term investing in companies, long term being the key phrase you suffer a slight loss in equity when the company doesn't perform well. Not the investors(as we call them) If you were able to invest in a company only long enough to realize the profit increase for a good quarter, take the profits and run, do this over and over, and you end up wealthy, Everyone who is invested through 401k grows at a snails pace because your wealth is actually embedded in the company your 401K invests in. Your 401k eats the ups and downs, they skidaddle with the money. Wealth distribution is solved by focusing on this area.

[NYC_SKP]

1. This 401K crap is like the RW Personal Retirement Account & Medical Savings Account movements.

Just a shitty way to force people into risky investments and/or privatized schemes instead of good quality and secure social security and medicare for all.

Fuck it.

We who had accounts lost our butts while execs were vacationing at the Ritz Carltons of the world.

[KamaAina]

2. Mom never did get hers back.

[NYC_SKP]

6. My "savings" were in my home, which went almost upside down, and my AIG plan.

The only saving grace is that I was able to invest in a different home while the market was still down, buy at auction at a really good price that would have been out of reach before.

Vultures.

Sorry about your mom.

My mom and dad had county pensions, a dying form of security.

[KamaAina]

7. Well, she did marry a retired corporate attorney

known hereabouts as Republican Stepdad.

[brush]

3. What you describe is market timing by wealth investors

On paper/or screen that sounds good but it really doesn't work or we'd all be billionaires.

Of course an investor can profit take when there's a strong surge in a particular stock or index fund or mutual or etf fund but then you're sitting there with your short term profit and wondering when to invest back into the stock or fund.

It's all about guessing at that point, and if you wait too long you could miss another upward surge or you can plunge back in just in time for a big drop in prices.

The strategy that most season investors advise is to stay in long-term (with money that you aren't going to need for 5 years or more) and the market will rise over that time. Of course there will be corrections but over all, it will go up more than down.

401Ks invested in just a single company stock is not a good idea. Most company 401K plans offer diversity options for different mutual funds in entirely different market sectors other than the company stock. The wise move is to take advantage of those options so all your investment eggs aren't in the one-company stock basket.

Market timing is a quick way to lose big or lose out even bigger.

[GreatGazoo]

4. The Stock market is a shell game

Let's look at the DOW. They tell you to "buy and hold" but the DOW regularly dumps stocks that have peaked. Here are stocks that were dumped by the DOW and replaced with winners over the last 20 years:

Kodak (2004)
Woolworth
Hewlett Packard
Citgroup (dumped in 2009)
Altria
Honeywell

Bank of America gets add in 2008 and dumped in 2013.

Personally I would focus more on Standard of Living rather than "wealth distribution." The SOL has been in decline in the US since 1968. The rate of decline has picked up in recent years. Gambling in a rigged game is not the answer.

[brooklynite]

8. My Apple Stock is up 60% in the past year...

My 401(k) is up 8%. All a matter of picking balanced index funds and stuff you actually know about.

[GreatGazoo]

9. yes. I put my father in Apple when the stock was $10 (2001)

If you stick with stocks that you are well informed about you can do okay but I still disagree with the idea that everyone should be in stocks, or that the stock market is the way for the 99% to get the same ride as the 1%.

(btw, my father's broker sold at $35 and thought he was genius for doing so.)

[brooklynite]

10. The Union pension funds are all in the stock market...

[LaydeeBug]

5. This all great stuff guys, and I really do appreciate it. nt