I'm watching what little tiny bit I've managed to squirrel away disappear before my eyes. What on earth is happening to the market? This is awful!

I feel ya, carinna. My retirement funds are taking a hit, but so are everyone else's, so I guess we're all in it together. Nothing to be done--this is definitely NOT the time to sell...

Jay

DO NOT SELL. in fact if you can increase your retirement withholding. right now you buy a lot and later on when it goes up you have more.

They are murdering my 401k right now. I feel like I'm just giving it away, at this point. As of today, it's down 16%. 16% I just gave away...here ya go, no questions asked.

Don't look... for the next 5 years at least, preferably 10 years. Unless you want to invest more, then go ahead and look and buy things that are good bargains. Honestly, I pulled out all my personal investments (except for a couple things) in the market a couple years ago because I knew this was coming. My 401k, I pulled a lot into bonds and left the others into diverse mutual funds. At some point, I plan to increase my 401k contributions and put more into mutual funds but not yet.

My broker simply says "this is a great time to buy." He's a little too chipper for me! I can't tell you how much I've lost in the past few days/weeks/year. It's very sad indeed. I figure it will take me at least 10 years to recover--at least I'm 20 years from retirement (although we wanted to retire in 10 years).

Hopefully in before 2009 is over?

If I had the cash right now, I would definitely put more into my retirement fund. But I have to wait for some checks to come in.

Jay

yes, yes, yes!!!

What Nessa and Jay and everyone else is saying.

If you can afford it, buy. Everything is cyclical. If you can buckle down, hold tight, and buy while it's cheap, the next "up" cycle will have you sitting pretty.

This is the tough part. I totally sympathize because I run a business that sells a luxury/non-necessity item and my business is down big time. But I know if I can tough it out, things will improve.

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It will go back up. It always does. I do think it may take 8-10 years before things rebound completely, but they will. I most definitely agree that selling is not an option, this is the time to buy, if you can.

as someone who doesnt understand money, stocks, the market or what in the world goes on with the dow or what any of it means... i only have a checking and a savings account - neither one have any money in them.

what does all of this mean?

Oh, I wouldn't just buy to be buying. That's too dangerous. I've made errors in stock purchases in the past. But making contributions to my retirement funds (which are solid mutual funds) is a good thing to do right now. Anyway, that's what Suze Orman said on Oprah last week.

Jay