Investment income on the decline again

Looks like the market is going to do a deep dive again today Deb. But yesterday, due to the big recovery, did you find that you regained some of your losses? i regained that $6,000+ that I "lost".
The news this morning made what Powell said yesterday seem dated...cost of replacing hires in business is over the top high. Looks like oil will skyrocket. Looking forward to losing what we gained a bit yesterday. Sigh.
 

The markets are in another major downturn today....over 3%. This is going to continue until the markets get used to the FED raising rates, etc. We'll be lucky if the economy doesn't dip into a recession this year.

I pretty much abandoned the markets in late January....after making some nice gains late last year. I'm keeping just enough in my IRA to allow the monthly distributions to keep coming for a few more months.....the rest of it is "marking time" in the money market.

Until the CBOE VIX drops to less than 20, and stays there for weeks, I'm staying on the sidelines. If the FED continues to raise rates, I may even see some decent returns from the bank accounts.....for the first time in years.
 

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My investment is still on its downward spiral. It's lost over $33K in value since January.
Mine too, my account has lost almost 14% of its value. I keep thinking 'oh the price fell, it is a good time to buy' but then I buy and immediately the prices go farther down. On the early-retirement site someone was saying they were making 7% interest on junk bonds. So I decided to buy one little junk bond, but my order disappeared, I think someone else must have bought it before I could.
 
I think things are going to get worse before they get better
Same here. I agree with most of the "experts" who are saying that we are soon going to be in a recession....if we're not already there. I doubt that the markets will recover anytime soon....perhaps just an occasional few days of "positive" before they go down even further. The best indicator, IMO, is the CBOE VIX....it is sitting at nearly 30. Until it drops below 20, and holds there, or lower, the downturns will likely continue. With the actions of the FED, rampant inflation, the Ukraine mess, etc., etc., this downturn may be one of the worst in decades.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-to-survive-the-worst-bear-market-of-all-time-120034754.html
 
I've lost lots of value in my investments as well but I'm not withdrawing any money out of equities right now. It may be a year or more, but I'm sure the market will go back up at some point. Stocks are going to be pretty cheap if the market keeps falling, and smart investors will go back in and snatch up good deals.

My broker set aside enough cash to cover my mother's expenses in assisted living, and since she passed last November the remainder will most likely last me until the end of 2023. I'm very conservative in the cash I withdraw each month. I took Social Security at 63. Combined with that, I have just enough to pay my bills. We spend on travel and entertainment, but we are still conservative. I was planning on meeting a friend on a Mexico cruise in November, but we both canceled.

I will be 65 next month, and god willing, I will have enough to ride out the ups and downs in the market. It's pretty bleak right now, but I'm in it for the long haul. My father lived to 78 y/o (unexpected preventable death) and my mother lived to 89 y/o, so hopefully I have some time.
 
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I've lost over $10K the last 2 months on my investment account. Can anyone explain this?
There is a guy on youtube (themoneygps) that I watch almost daily that seems to be pulling out some info others aren't talking about. He doesn't give investing advice, but I do think he is close to what I've been seeing in the markets. Just my opinion, but I fear things are going to get tougher before getting easier again worldwide. Sorry. I hope I'm wrong.
 
I've lost over $10K the last 2 months on my investment account. Can anyone explain this?
Its inflation and the Fed's response to inflation, raining interest rates by a significant amount in a rather short time interval.. Your and my stock investments are being repriced accordingly. Until you sell an investment you haven't actually lost or gained anything.
 
I took a drive to the mountains yesterday and saw a lot of for sale signs in front of houses. That may be a canary in the coal mine.
Housing prices are dropping due to rising interest rates. We still have only 2 months of inventory in Dallas, but that is compared to 1 month a short time ago. The ideal situation is 6 months of inventory. I, selfishly, am glad to see it because we have no intention of selling, yet our property taxes have risen an enormous amount due to the shortage of inventory and the valuation of our house.
 
I've lost over $10K the last 2 months on my investment account. Can anyone explain this?
Yeah simple common sense math logic.
Because with gambling, results are not certain even when what ends up occurring was a long shot.

Especially when securities are overly positively promoted and analytically valued as a result of commercial advisors with at least in part their own agendas that will depend in part on other business associates and companies.
 
All who own stocks and bonds are seeing a downturn in the value of those investments. Understand that this loss in value does not become a true loss in value unless you sell it. It only becomes a true loss in value if you cash in some of those devalued stocks and bonds. Follow me on this...if you have lost 30% in value and your original value was $100 dollars, the shares are now only worth $70, yet the number of shares you own is the same. Jump forward a year after you sold your stocks and the same investments are now back to $100, but you only have $70 to buy back into the market. Your loss is real...

Historically, the American stock market has NEVER stayed low, it has always come back and then exceeded its original values. I am 72 now and I have been through many of these drops in market value, but I have always held tight and waited until the market comes back up. It always has and I have never lost any value from these drops in market conditions...if the market never came back, our country would be destitute and all investments, including gold, silver, and our actual cash would become worthless, or at least hold very little value...

So, I say, hold tight and wait it out. Unless of course you rely on selling your stocks and bonds for month to month living expenses. Something you should never do...even in retirement...but that's a completely different story...
 
I've lost over $10K the last 2 months on my investment account. Can anyone explain this?

Investment income on the decline again​

We do not find that to be true. We are retired and get our SS and stock dividends in the same amount. No change.

Yes, our stocks have gone down about 20% but so far all our stocks have not reduced their dividends. If fact two have increased their dividends.
 
All who own stocks and bonds are seeing a downturn in the value of those investments. Understand that this loss in value does not become a true loss in value unless you sell it. It only becomes a true loss in value if you cash in some of those devalued stocks and bonds. Follow me on this...if you have lost 30% in value and your original value was $100 dollars, the shares are now only worth $70, yet the number of shares you own is the same. Jump forward a year after you sold your stocks and the same investments are now back to $100, but you only have $70 to buy back into the market. Your loss is real...

Historically, the American stock market has NEVER stayed low, it has always come back and then exceeded its original values. I am 72 now and I have been through many of these drops in market value, but I have always held tight and waited until the market comes back up. It always has and I have never lost any value from these drops in market conditions...if the market never came back, our country would be destitute and all investments, including gold, silver, and our actual cash would become worthless, or at least hold very little value...

So, I say, hold tight and wait it out. Unless of course you rely on selling your stocks and bonds for month to month living expenses. Something you should never do...even in retirement...but that's a completely different story...
Yep, you "lock in your losses" when you sell stocks/bonds during a downturn...listen to Timewise 60 -
hold on to your shares and don't get "spooked". The two days that matter when investing in the market are the day you buy and the day you sell.
 
My investment isn't in the Stock Market. I have Franklin Fund tax free securities. I am not panicking, just curious. The worst thing peple do in an economic downturn is start pulling money out of their investments. That's what caused the Stock Market crash in 1929. Sell! Sell! Sell!
Deb, The reason the fund is down is because interest rates have gone up. For example. if you have a $100 bond paying 2%, and interest rates go up to 3%, the value of the bond decreases to $66.67.
One main thing that caused the '29 crash was you could buy stock on 10% margin. If the stock declined more than 10% you were forced to sell, and the effect cascaded.
 
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My father was a financial advisor, and when he retired prior to the advent of the internet he would watch the ticker tape on TV all day. He was a worrier, and he got so depressed at times when he saw the value of his portfolio decline. He ended up passing away with much more money than he could ever spend, so I refuse to worry and become obsessed with how my investments are doing with the latest decline in the market. I learned a lot from my father, both good and bad.

BTW, my mother lived another 21 years, so a large portion of what he left was spent on her housing bills and assisted living. Most of what I have in the market these days is the result of socking the maximum amount of my paycheck into my 401k for over 30 years.

To others' points about only realizing a loss when you sell, I received a pretty significant number of shares of Carnival Corporation stock as severance when my job was eliminated. Prior to Covid, it was valued at over $40 per share. When I received it, it was valued at $14 per share. It is now valued at under $10 per share, so if I sold I would realize a significant loss. I'm holding onto it.
 
dseag2...sighting one example of a failing companies stock drop has nothing to do with a stock market slump!

This post could be misleading to many who are not familiar with the markets.

Are you suggesting people should sell all their stocks or even some of their stocks during this downturn?
 
dseag2...sighting one example of a failing companies stock drop has nothing to do with a stock market slump!

This post could be misleading to many who are not familiar with the markets.

Are you suggesting people should sell all their stocks or even some of their stocks during this downturn?
I interpreted @dseag2's post as delivering exactly the opposite message. He's hanging tough because he's pretty sure Carnival (and other stocks) will rebound. For his sake, I sure hope it will. 🤞

I have zero tolerance for the stock market. Never have had. My siblings and I (and our spouses) are extremely risk-averse. We watched our father play the market like a rabid gambler at a blackjack table. Ultimately, he probably made more than he lost, but there were times when he lost big on stocks and commodities. (I remember an unhappy evening in the early 70s when he took a $35,000 bath on pork bellies. There was zero joy in Mudville that night.)

When the stock market tanked at various points, so did his portfolio, but like most inveterate gamblers, he couldn't resist the market's siren song for very long. Lucky for the him and the family, he was a very high earner so we had ample money to live, but the steady underlying drumbeat his children heard was that the markets weren't to be trusted.

A friend has become a day trader after retiring as a dentist. It doesn't appear he's terribly successful at it, but like my father he loves the thrill of the chase.

Obviously other people's experiences and risk tolerances are different, but I have zero dollars in the stock market and am happy to not be tossing and turning over my investments every night.
 


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