No more 401k's for us!!

DH just opened his 401k statement--he lost 49% of his investment from 10/5-11/13. He has had terrible luck with them, even at another job. He can't get to the money until he leaves or retires, though I did have him change his funds all over to a "safer" one--one that made (at that time) a whopping 3% profit that year (it was the only one that did not lose anything--his employer has the worst group of funds I have ever seen!).

Has anyone else lost a lot on theirs?

Originally Posted by MargeCat

DH just opened his 401k statement--he lost 49% of his investment from 10/5-11/13. He has had terrible luck with them, even at another job. He can't get to the money until he leaves or retires, though I did have him change his funds all over to a "safer" one--one that made (at that time) a whopping 3% profit that year (it was the only one that did not lose anything--his employer has the worst group of funds I have ever seen!).

Has anyone else lost a lot on theirs?

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I don't have a 401k, but some other sort of plan through the state. I didn't invest mine... just let it sit there.

I had to cash in my investments when I went off sick.

However, nothing is really lost unless he withdraws money from it now. The market will go back up, it always does. This is actually the best time to be investing.

Natalie, you're the smart one. If it's going to be 10 years or more before a person needs the money, they should be putting as much as they can afford in right now. I don't know why people run to the store when there's a 40%-off sale on shoes, but when there's a 40%-off sale on investments, they run the other way.

I just tuck the unopened envelopes into the file cabinet. I can't bear to look at the statements anymore. Retirement looks farther and farther away. It just makes me sick.

I don't look at them anymore either-its who lost more this month (ours sends monthly ones). YIKES!! I don't contribute to mine anymore however.

Originally Posted by coaster

I don't know why people run to the store when there's a 40%-off sale on shoes, but when there's a 40%-off sale on investments, they run the other way.

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That's a good way of looking at it.

Now that I'm back to work I'm socking as much into retirement funds as I possibly can afford to put into them.

I also lost a bundle from mine. But advice from my friend the financial advisor: buy low and sell high. If you can afford it, buying right now at very low prices is the right thing to do.

Originally Posted by coaster

Natalie, you're the smart one. If it's going to be 10 years or more before a person needs the money, they should be putting as much as they can afford in right now. I don't know why people run to the store when there's a 40%-off sale on shoes, but when there's a 40%-off sale on investments, they run the other way.

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I dunno, Tim. How would you explain the 20 year period, 1961 thru 1981, when the stock market barely moved at all?

I got my profit sharing and 401k statement the other day and I feel pretty fortunate.I lost some,but nothing that won't recover eventually.There are quite a few longer term associates than myself who lost quite a bit more than I did.I left mine alone and didn't play with it,where they did.Hunker down and hold on seems to work for me.

Buy low, sell high. It has to go back up eventually. There are only a couple of investments I have that took a hit, one is a play fund, the other a saving fund long term which took the biggest hit of all. I will just have to wait for it to go back up. I am still buying stock, but I'm not sinking into that fund just because my goals take me to other funds.

There has never been a 10-year period when the stock market didn't go up. It's up 4 out of 5 5-year periods, and 2 out of 3 3-year periods.

Originally Posted by PookieBoy

I dunno, Tim. How would you explain the 20 year period, 1961 thru 1981, when the stock market barely moved at all?

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Hi Judy!!

You confuse the market index with individual stocks, and leave out the dividends. The index is an average, so it's got the bad performers as well as the good performers. And the index doesn't account for the dividend yield, which can be pretty decent when the market is down.

I don't have the exact figures or the reference at hand, but I do remember reading that if someone had bought at the top before the 1929 crash and just held, and reinvested the dividends, they would have had a positive gain over about the next 10 years (the period varies depending on assumptions made, but it's not nearly so bad as just looking at the DJIA)

Originally Posted by mrblanche

There has never been a 10-year period when the stock market didn't go up. It's up 4 out of 5 5-year periods, and 2 out of 3 3-year periods.

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That's the standard line of financial advisors; I learned when I was one, and at that time it was true. I heard or read somewhere (probably CNBC, not the most reliable source) that this year that rolling 10-year period was busted.

My investments were fairly conservative and I had a decent cash position. Still, my IRAs and other non-sheltered investments lost on average between 27-30 percent. But I am young enough to hold on for a rebound. But when you couple that with the dramatic plunge in the value of my home, it really hurts.

What really upsets me is that my mom's stockbroker and so-called investment advisor had her waaaay too invested in the market... too much exposure for an 84 year old lady. Even if the market was going gangbusters... she had too much exposure to securities.

And she lost money she couldn't afford to lose before we realized what had happened, stepped in and DEMANDED that he engage in asset reallocation and preservation. OK - we weren't keeping an eye on things and learned a hard and expensive lesson, but I really feel he committed negligence against a little old lady and someone whose accounts he has managed for ... oh.. maybe 20 years or more. Needless to say, we are searching for someone else to manage these until Mom is no longer with us. Sigh....

I lost a little but not all that much. I am just going to tough it out for a couple of more years. I did get a loan from my 401k a couple of years ago that I am slowly paying back.

AddieBee - brokers and financial advisors are supposed to do suitability profiles so that their recommendations fit their clients' financial needs. I'd start with the broker's manager and work your way up. Their are procedures set up by NASD to address these issues. Furthermore, if the broker had a limited power of attorney to place trades/transactions on her behalf there's a higher level of fiduciary responsibility that might have not have been followed, and there might be some sort of financial redress for her grievances.

I wouldn't just leave it with pulling the accounts. That broker might have more elderly clients in the same spot.

Originally Posted by coaster

Natalie, you're the smart one. If it's going to be 10 years or more before a person needs the money, they should be putting as much as they can afford in right now. I don't know why people run to the store when there's a 40%-off sale on shoes, but when there's a 40%-off sale on investments, they run the other way.

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I'm just gonna hold tight, keep putting in for my match and hope to come out the other end of this better for it. for all of us...

I think I told this story here earlier, so bear with me.

Some years ago (maybe around 2000?) I came across a driver at Werner Enterprises (we worked there at that time) who had had a fair amount of cash in the bank, etc. $20,000+ On Black Monday, back in October of 1987, he started buying Wal-Mart stock as it went down, and bought bunches of it all day. By the end of the day, he had every penny of his savings in Wal-Mart stock. The DJIA suffered it's biggest one-day loss ever that day, 22%.

He held on to the stock. It doubled in price, split, doubled, split, doubled, split, doubled, split, and was about to split again when we talked to him.

He said that one day of gutting it out made it possible for him to retire five years earlier than he had originally planned.

We invested about $600 in Wal-Mart stock in 1992, and in 2005 we sold it for enough to pay cash for our $6000 enclosed hot rod carrier.

I have lost about 10,000 $ in the last year however my company was going down hill and then was bought out. The other stocks lost some gained some. Now I have to figure out what to do with my 401k cause the company is dispersing them all b/c of the buy-out.