Stocking picking fail, how can we turn our retirement portfolio around?

[Anonymous]

The answer to your title question is to buy near market bottom sometime later this year.

If you have other financial obligations and cannot do this, then your portfolio will just take longer to turn around.

That's all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The answer to your title question is to buy near market bottom sometime later this year.

If you have other financial obligations and cannot do this, then your portfolio will just take longer to turn around.

That's all.

The answer is to rebuy now in total market index funds since no one can predict the market.

Also there is no reason to have individual stocks. A total market index fund has the entire US stock market. Buying individual stocks is placing a bet or gamble on a specific company by overweighting that company relative to its market weight. There is not a problem with having some small amount of play money in a portfolio for this, but given your husband's addiction, I advise you ban individual stock investing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You sound extremely uninformed.

1. This year, there's been a market correction. Your portfolio would have tanked anyway.
2. You're young. You'll recover nicely.
3. DO NOT SELL. Keep the tech, it will do well in the future.
4. When market reaches bottom in the next few weeks and months, buy more stock. I'm buying more tech.

The only thing we agree on is that you should steer your own portfolio.

I am 60 NP. Will I recover? Don't plan to retire til 70, if I am in good health. I work for myself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound extremely uninformed.

1. This year, there's been a market correction. Your portfolio would have tanked anyway.
2. You're young. You'll recover nicely.
3. DO NOT SELL. Keep the tech, it will do well in the future.
4. When market reaches bottom in the next few weeks and months, buy more stock. I'm buying more tech.

The only thing we agree on is that you should steer your own portfolio.

Yes, it would have tanked but not 60+ percent. That’s too much. Our entire portfolio should be 15-20 individual tech stocks that were suggested by Motley Fool. Random companies like Lemonade... We aren’t selling but at this point I don’t want to buy a bunch of speculative individual stocks. We are continuing to put more in the market but we need to put it in index funds. If it was even like 20-30 percent fine but 60 percent in a year is insane.

You didn't complained when it was up 100% last year. In fact you bragged about how you are beating the market.
Higher rewards come with higher risk.

[Anonymous]

I’m in my 50s. I have lived this before. Put all new investment in an index fund. If one of those tech stocks goes high again in the future, sell it then and put that in n index fund (although I left my tech fund from the 90s alone also, but never put any more money in it). Set and forget, play the long game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You sound extremely uninformed.

1. This year, there's been a market correction. Your portfolio would have tanked anyway.
2. You're young. You'll recover nicely.
3. DO NOT SELL. Keep the tech, it will do well in the future.
4. When market reaches bottom in the next few weeks and months, buy more stock. I'm buying more tech.

The only thing we agree on is that you should steer your own portfolio.

I know the Motley type picks from last year. High beta stocks like UPST, SHOP, etc. They even recommended those stocks when they were already hot, at very high prices. Now, I don't track the exact timing of their picks and the stock price at that time, but UPST was $400 at the high last year. SHOP was $1500. UPST is now around $40 and SHOP around $300. Those stocks are dead. Recommend getting out of those when they have a 10% up day. They have 10% up days a few times a month.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The answer to your title question is to buy near market bottom sometime later this year.

If you have other financial obligations and cannot do this, then your portfolio will just take longer to turn around.

That's all.

The answer is to rebuy now in total market index funds since no one can predict the market.

Also there is no reason to have individual stocks. A total market index fund has the entire US stock market. Buying individual stocks is placing a bet or gamble on a specific company by overweighting that company relative to its market weight. There is not a problem with having some small amount of play money in a portfolio for this, but given your husband's addiction, I advise you ban individual stock investing.

Motley did well in the bull market from 2020-2021 by picking individual stocks of high growth companies. So, I would caveat by saying picking individual stocks in a BEAR Market or at the top of a BULL MARKET is bad idea. Picking high growth companies when interest rates were super low and the Fed was QE is a good idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH lost a significant amount this year stock picking in an ETrade account for retirement. His 401k is index funds but he followed Motley Fool with a bunch of overvalued tech companies and that account is down at least 50-60 percent YTD .. possibly more. He won’t tell me. I knew because he did the same to my personal 401k. We lost A LOT. Late 30’s. Some of these may recover like Airbnb and Amazon but some may not. Some are down like 85-90 percent.

After doing a little research I told him at this point forward I want him to just put any money into the S+P 500 index fund.
We have about $200k cash sitting we got from a company stock situation. Luckily we had planned to use that for something that didn’t pan out so it’s been sitting in cash all year and was not put into this super volatile account!

Where should we put that if we may need it in the next 1-2 years?

What should our investing strategy be moving forward? Right now we have several hundred thousand in these individual stocks with no plans to sell but I told him we cannot continue this strategy. IF they are winners long term we have enough risk now.

When markets are like this keep it simple for longer term money. Index funds, large caps, some investment grade bonds. Buying the QQQ/SPY off 30%ish is not bad.

[Anonymous]

This is the reason I’ll pay the commission to a wealth manager. I grew up watching my dad buy high and sell low, as he’d panic every time the market corrected. He lost so much money in his lifetime. I tried investing on my own for many years and tracked my returns. But I’m not a finance expert and the .94% or whatever I pay my managers is well worth it- they’re making me way more than I could have on my own. They pay for themselves.

[Anonymous]

You said you need that money in the short term. I would not put money I need in the short term into the market.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound extremely uninformed.

1. This year, there's been a market correction. Your portfolio would have tanked anyway.
2. You're young. You'll recover nicely.
3. DO NOT SELL. Keep the tech, it will do well in the future.
4. When market reaches bottom in the next few weeks and months, buy more stock. I'm buying more tech.

The only thing we agree on is that you should steer your own portfolio.

I am 60 NP. Will I recover? Don't plan to retire til 70, if I am in good health. I work for myself.

PP you replied to. My husband is 60 too. We have 100% handpicked stocks in our portfolios. Yes, they tanked this year. No, we're not worried. We've been at this for a while now. It's fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the reason I’ll pay the commission to a wealth manager. I grew up watching my dad buy high and sell low, as he’d panic every time the market corrected. He lost so much money in his lifetime. I tried investing on my own for many years and tracked my returns. But I’m not a finance expert and the .94% or whatever I pay my managers is well worth it- they’re making me way more than I could have on my own. They pay for themselves.

Are you saying you didn't loose money at all this year? How much are you down? Can you recommend a manager? I am just starting my 401K

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound extremely uninformed.

1. This year, there's been a market correction. Your portfolio would have tanked anyway.
2. You're young. You'll recover nicely.
3. DO NOT SELL. Keep the tech, it will do well in the future.
4. When market reaches bottom in the next few weeks and months, buy more stock. I'm buying more tech.

The only thing we agree on is that you should steer your own portfolio.

I know the Motley type picks from last year. High beta stocks like UPST, SHOP, etc. They even recommended those stocks when they were already hot, at very high prices. Now, I don't track the exact timing of their picks and the stock price at that time, but UPST was $400 at the high last year. SHOP was $1500. UPST is now around $40 and SHOP around $300. Those stocks are dead. Recommend getting out of those when they have a 10% up day. They have 10% up days a few times a month.

UPST is now $26 and SHOP is $37 (did it split?)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sound extremely uninformed.

1. This year, there's been a market correction. Your portfolio would have tanked anyway.
2. You're young. You'll recover nicely.
3. DO NOT SELL. Keep the tech, it will do well in the future.
4. When market reaches bottom in the next few weeks and months, buy more stock. I'm buying more tech.

The only thing we agree on is that you should steer your own portfolio.

I know the Motley type picks from last year. High beta stocks like UPST, SHOP, etc. They even recommended those stocks when they were already hot, at very high prices. Now, I don't track the exact timing of their picks and the stock price at that time, but UPST was $400 at the high last year. SHOP was $1500. UPST is now around $40 and SHOP around $300. Those stocks are dead. Recommend getting out of those when they have a 10% up day. They have 10% up days a few times a month.

UPST is now $26 and SHOP is $37 (did it split?)

UPST tanked. SHOP dropped and then split 10:1.

[Anonymous]

First, you should change your credentials for your 401k account and do not provide them to your husband. That's your account and he doesn't get to do speculative stock purchasing with it. Move those funds into a broad total stock market index fund or a balanced fund if you prefer to add some bond allocation and forget about it for the next 20 years.

As for the $200k you will need in the next two years, unfortunately, that time horizon is rather short for stock investing. Typically, the recommendation is to invest in stocks with at least a three-year horizon and maybe more like five. If you need that money in 1-2 years, look for a good high-yield savings account or CD. You should be able to get close to 2% if not a bit more depending on the bank. Look around. You can choose to put it into a stock fund like the S&P, but there are no guarantees it will be all there.

You and your husband need to sit down together and agree to an investment strategy with your money. Is he willing to read the Bogleheads Guide to Investing? It's a pretty comprehensive take on why low-cost index fund investing is superior and also easy. One idea is to allow your husband some set percentage, 5% is recommended, with which to play and speculate. Maybe he'll do great, maybe not, but at least you guys can't destroy your long-term future.

The Bogleheads.org forum has a set of like-minded folks to help if you and your DH want to check it out. The caliber of folks is a cut above DCUM with respect to investing.