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Just find a good S&P 500 fund (meaning it basically comprises itself of many companies in the S&P 500, and tracks the entire market) in your 401k choices, and put your money in that one. Or, you could find a date retirement fund, (something like "2040 Fund", whatever corresponds to your closest date of retirement at say age 65) and put your money in there, and let it ride!
Don't go in and out of funds, and play the market. Don't try to buy individual stocks, and don't PANIC and sell when the market drops. If you have at least 10 or more years to go till retirement, you should be fine. Just keep putting at least enough money in it to get any company matching funds. Right now, I'm putting 51% of my pay in my 401k, and already surpassed the $17.5K limit last paycheck, and am now filling out the $5.5K catch-up for people over age 55. That'll be done by the last paycheck of this year.
So many people have the idea that they "need $5 MILLION dollars in the bank before I can retire", that they despair it'll never happen. The first thing you should realize is that you don't need anywhere near that much money for a good retirement if you pay attention to your real NEEDS versus WANTS.
the s&p 500 does not track the entire stock market. the entire market is about 5000 stocks and depending how you weight things with all the other parts the s&p 500 can have a big effect overall or a smaller one.
as far as needs vs wants , it is the wants that put the life in life . your financial dreams and goals many times can be more wants than needs.
if i had to retire and just afford the needs to be honest i would rather keep working. in fact my goal has always been to lead a better lifestyle in retirement as our reward for a lifetime of scrimping ,saving ,doing without and investing.
With the US and governments around the world pumping fake money its hard to lose, dont freak out over the short drops stay in and things come back. I bought American Airlines poor move tanked like 7 bucks on me, freaked out and was about to sell but even a turd like that floats back to the top. My southwest was down big climbed backup. BNFT down climbed back up. As long as the government keeps pumping money keep investing and buying on dips and don't freakout when things go down a bit
Also buy solid industries and companies which are udnervalued, don't get sucked into the alibabas and amazon and all that crap
the s&p 500 does not track the entire stock market. the entire market is about 5000 stocks and depending how you weight things with all the other parts the s&p 500 can have a big effect overall or a smaller one.
as far as needs vs wants , it is the wants that put the life in life . your financial dreams and goals many times can be more wants than needs.
if i had to retire and just afford the needs to be honest i would rather keep working. in fact my goal has always been to lead a better lifestyle in retirement as our reward for a lifetime of scrimping ,saving ,doing without and investing.
Very wise words. This thought explains a lot of what's going wrong right now with retirement in the US.
a) If I cannot save enough for enough "wants" and will have to do with "needs" only, why starting to save for retirement at all? The rational choice for most Americans is not to save for retirement under the current regime. We should have stayed with pensions and more generous social security. Instead we exacerbate the growing income inequality into retirement.
b) A lot of people delude themselves as to how much they can still DIY and/or work in retirement. In reality things like yard work, car and home maintenance etc. will be a lot harder at 65+ and many will not be able to physically do these things.
c) Last but not least an important psychological perspective -as you mentioned- we studied and worked and rose children all our lives after our own youth. This is quite a lot of work and sometimes aggravating. I admire my wife for staying home with the kids. She does amazing work and things every day! So in the retirement age I feel we all deserve not to worry about scrimping by. Other developed nations can do it and they have much less per-capita GDP than the US.
d) It cannot all depend on how much money you make and how well you can invest. We know most people suck big time at investing so what do we expect from our current self-directed retirement system? Right, 80% will have none.
e) In my parents generation retirement finances were not even a topic. They all seemed to have generous pensions and are set until the day they pass away. Moreover, they subsidize our lives quite a lot. And they retired around age 60 across the board. This is 100% unthinkable for almost all of current and future retirees as long as we can foresee it.
Since we're bumping old threads I thought this one would be a good memory. I won't bother to post the chart starting from this thread's date through today but it's worth looking at considering the tone of all the recent threads. Happy trading.
He ‘won’ about $24K..Then lost it all when he didn’t sell and it dropped. I asked why he didn’t sell and he said he was waiting for it to go higher.
I would call him an idiot but that would be unfair to idiots.
That doesnt sound like a day trader. Just simply a guy who buys and sells.
A day trader doesnt hold any stocks overnight.
A day trader generally limits their risk to 2% loss.
I can call myself a doctor or a lawyer, that doesn’t make it true.
Most indications are a slowing of the economy--
Reduction in companies' earnings and loss of positive uptick of the tax changes...
The only positive factor that would seem to make a big difference in CFOs' confidence--which is really down for 2019--would likely be the China tariff revision...
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