Managing investments in a downturn - No politics!

I missed a bullet - well maybe not a bullet, but a pellet, or at least a paintball round. A few days ago, when the stock market dropped something like 6 percent, I almost liquidated $50 to 60 thou worth of 401k. Had I done so, there's a good chance that it would have been processed on the day that the market hit bottom. I find the market to be very humbling, and that I'm best off "setting and forgetting" for the most part.

Regardless of whether or not one approves of the current administrations policies (irrelevant for the purposes of this thread), it is clear that we are in the middle of a big experiment that will take a long time to understand in all its ramifications. It's going to be quite a ride.  

Steve_Jones said:

Lots of money in this thread for being "grassroots" :)

Taking care of myself in my retirement, rather than trusting the government to properly manage the money they take from me every month seems pretty grassroots to me.

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

Steve_Jones said:

Lots of money in this thread for being "grassroots" :)

If one drives through the poor part of town where I live, there are a surprising number of nice cars. A lot of them are trading in economic security for "bling" or "flexing" on others. Conversely, there are wealthy people who still work on their own cars. The point being that "Grassroots" is a state of mind independent of actual social-economic standing. 

I would be considered wealthy, but nobody is more grassroots than me, driving a Chevy Spark, and still doing my own oil changes. It's partly how I got there.

Steve_Jones said:

Lots of money in this thread for being "grassroots" :)

With all due respect Sir, we have lots of money because we're grassroots 

Edit...

I told my banker that I'd give her a bottle of tequila when I retired and yesterday was the day to make good on the promise.

She mentioned that the client she just finished meeting with lost over 250K in the proceeding four-day downturn and I said "that's cute".

Anyway, after a nice talk, she walked me out and watched me get into my 2019 Mazda CX-3...it occurred to me that she must have been thinking WTF.

"Grassroots" doesn't mean cheap, poor, or inexpensive. 
 

As it relates to GRM, I'd say it means Motorsports accessible to "ordinary" folk. The average guy can go racing, not just the racing elite.

It ain't about money.

In reply to RX Reven' :

We have money?

When did this happen?

SV reX said:

"Grassroots" doesn't mean cheap, poor, or inexpensive. 

 

As it relates to GRM,

It ain't about money.

It absolutely can mean cheap, poor, or inexpensive

Are you familiar with the magazine at all?

In reply to Peabody :

I know the owners of most of those cars, and I was a previous owner of one of them. We ain't poor. 
 

I've had more than a dozen different cars at the $2000 Challenge.  The ability to build inexpensively on a budget is not inherently cheap or poor, and every issue of the magazine also features articles about cars that are not cheap (but are definitely grassroots).

Grassroots efforts can be expressed in inexpensive and creative efforts (which is what I enjoy), but the word "grassroots " does not mean cheap, poor, or inexpensive.

Yeah, I mean GRM has a lot of DYI and doing more yourself for less. People went nuts for Seth tearing open his R63 AMG Mercedes and Tom gambling on a Cayman. Taking the same concept to finances isn't that far off here... You make calculated risk to hopefully pay off in future. Ya win some, ya lose some, but stories as always going to be biased towards success.

Peabody said:

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

Steve_Jones said:

Lots of money in this thread for being "grassroots" :)

If one drives through the poor part of town where I live, there are a surprising number of nice cars. A lot of them are trading in economic security for "bling" or "flexing" on others. Conversely, there are wealthy people who still work on their own cars. The point being that "Grassroots" is a state of mind independent of actual social-economic standing. 

I would be considered wealthy, but nobody is more grassroots than me, driving a Chevy Spark, and still doing my own oil changes. It's partly how I got there.

A millionaire, by definition, is someone who managed NOT to spend a million dollars.  Thats pretty grassroots :p. 

RX Reven' said:

She mentioned that the client she just finished meeting with lost over 250K in the proceeding four-day downturn and I said "that's cute".

Yep, compared to where I was at at the beginning of the year I was down about 7 years worth of salary. I'm only down around 5 now.. 

In reply to CrustyRedXpress :

Lighten up Francis.

It's not politics, it's facts.

It's been proven, repeatedly. Money invested privately, in a reasonably safe manner, grows at a rate better than any government managed pension.

In reply to SV reX :

Somehow you missed the point 

In reply to Peabody :

Seems to be going around. 

Like many here, I'm heavily invested in index funds, leaning mostly towards S&P 500, but I have a few tech and dividend funds, too.  I don't put much in bond markets, but do watch them as an indicator.  It is looking like the recent blips are mostly sellers needing liquidity, but the big concern I have is if the tariff war continues and China starts dumping bonds.  Couple that with the fact that it is hard (if not impossible) to be the world's reserve currency without running a trade deficit, and bond yields may continue to go up.  So, in the short term, the bond market may awful, and in the long term it might be okay, but probably a harbinger of dollar inflation.

In the case it looks like the dollar loses status as a reserve currency, I'm trying to come up with an investment plan.  There could be a long stretch(longer than I'll be alive) where there really isn't a dominant trade currency.  I need to do some research, but figured someone here may already be ahead of me on this.  Are there low cost ETFs that can be bought that hold Euro or RMB denominated stocks, kind of like S&P500 indexes, but for the EU or China?  Leaning more towards EU, since there is more "visibility" in what is going on.  

ShawnG said:

In reply to CrustyRedXpress :

Lighten up Francis.

It's not politics, it's facts.

It's been proven, repeatedly. Money invested privately, in a reasonably safe manner, grows at a rate better than any government managed pension.

 

SS isn't a government managed pension.  Never was.  
 

So this thread has never been about SS.  It's not even about a pension you may be getting from your employer, since that's also not a personal investment.  Unless you have retired and rolled it over into an IRA or whatnot.

For most, it will be about a 401k or TSP that is part of your employment, or an IRA for not.  Then other personal investment mechanisms.  Or perhaps you started a latter to self "insure" for some items you have.  One does not have to be rich to have a retirement account, or be clever enough to put some money aside in a higher yield account as a buffer.  

I will suggest that IF you have access to a retirement system via your employer, and are not using it, well, you should.  Many of those are matched by the employer in some manner, so not using it is giving up free money.  Having some kind of retirement account is the way to have a comfortable retirement, as an adder to SS.

In reply to alfadriver :

Canadian...

CPP IS a Govt managed pension.

I'm also self-employed. I do offer a company pension plan, it's called "me".

In reply to ShawnG :

Sorry, didn't know.  But it puts your posts into a different perspective.  

None the less, investing is still grassroots.

alfadriver said:

In reply to ShawnG :

None the less, investing is still grassroots.

Agreed.

I only wish I had learned about it 10 years earlier.

Would have been much more useful to learn money management in school, rather than 3 years of French that I never use.

That seemed to hit a nerve. I remember years ago if someone posted an exotic car, the post was flooded by a bunch of "this site is not for rich guys" replies. 
 

I never called anyone poor. I just commented on the dynamics of the posters changing over the years. 
 

Hand Hewn!

In reply to Steve_Jones :

Everyone has gotten older, and hopefully, wealthier. 

In reply to Steve_Jones :

I don't begrudge anyone their success, if come by honestly and ethically, but it's funny, for lack of a better word, to see how freely people mention their wealth here. Apparently that's the done thing now.

[[[SIDEBAR THE FIRST]]]

Ethics matter. Many years ago, I dealt with an individual who went out of his way to mention, frequently and unashamedly, that he had acquired his wealth by unscrupulous means. This was accompanied by relentless demands for discounts and special treatment, as if it were an honor to be abused by him. He's now an active member on this forum, and while his trademark behavior may have softened somewhat, it certainly hasn't disappeared. It is my sincerest hope that he gets all the rainbows life can offer him.

[[[SIDEBAR THE SECOND]]]

Also many years back, during one economic downturn or another, a customer asked for a discount and justified it with the fact that he was losing about ten thousand dollars a day in the market. At the time, ten thousand dollars was more than I'd ever seen in one place. Mrs Monohue was in college and we couldn't buy a bag of farts. We were seriously considering selling our plasma to make ends meet. I did not wish cancer on this particular moochbag, but a little tact (i.e. more than zero) would have been appreciated.

Anyway, I'm between fifteen and infinity years from retirement, so maybe this nonsense will blow over by the time they shove me into the parking lot.

In reply to DarkMonohue :

I am deeply uncomfortable with wishing cancer on anyone. Ever. 

In reply to SV reX :

That's fair. It was a bit tongue-in-cheek. Also not terribly likely to have any real effect, as my voodoo doesn't seem to work as advertised.

Electrocution, perhaps.