My retirement fund that I just started was worth $15k in December of 2021. Then, May of 2022, our area was hit really hard. My retirement plan went down to $7k. Today, it’s worth $11k. I lost $4k on my retirement plan. It’s invested in total market funds, some tech, some big cap companies, and healthcare. But every sector has been ravaged by the stock market changes.
Yea, you made a shitty bet, lost your ass, sold at the bottom, then reinvested into index funds, which has been steadily creeping up. That’s on you, bub.
How did you manage this. The market has been up every single year since you started.
Dollar cost averaging, son. Good time to buy!
You put 15k immediately in?
That sounds stressful.
If so, I feel it would be better to put 15k into your account but purchasing in 1k a month increments. It would have flattened that dip for you.
I started by putting a good amount of money in first with the goal to the the average later on.
I mean what should you do with spare 15k other then investing it somewhere.
Yes, yes you could diversify…
You should be continually contributing over time allowing you to benefit from the dips by buying low. This offsets the losses and is called dollar cost averaging,
Yep. Much like northbound travelers in the US South, when we see a low price we buy as much as our tank can carry.
3 years is absolutely nothing in stock market terms. Check in a decade.
Also you should really just invest in a super broad index fund instead of your specific tech and healthcare and stuff.
If you had only invested in a broad stock wide index fund, your 15k would be 17k right now. A total market index fund minimises risk nicely.
I have no idea what anybody is talking about.
If you don’t know what you are doing, and still young, just set a low cost broad market index fund or ETF as the place your retirement funds go. An example would be VTSAX or VTI. Disclaimer: I am not an investment expert or advisor.
What most of the commenters are missing is that the assumption that one has to know how to gamble in order to have a retirement is a broken and stupid USA thing. Nobody should be forced to learn these things in order to not end up on the street. OP clearly has no idea what they are doing-- and so many comments point this out with varying degrees of rudeness, smugness, and shitty attitude-- but the point should be that we are feeding naive investors like these to the lions and that is morally wrong and collectively shortsighted. We all suffer as a society because people like this are being required to make investment decisions and doing that really poorly.
He didn’t have to know, and he himself knew of the alternatives for people who don’t “know how to gamble”. Nobody in any country can stop you from using your own money in an unwise manner.
Because you invested in a shit plan or simply made your investments poorly. I know plenty of people who are doing well on their retirement investment plans, and I’m doing fine too. Don’t blame America, the country, for your shitty decisions.
This is what we call Survivor Bias.
LOL. Omg I’m such a survivor. I’m only a survivor because I survived this long. I would be a completely different person if I I just survived longer than this. 😝
Because you aren’t invested right. You probably clicked that option to allow them to invest it for you and so it picks all the funds with high expense ratios. Mine jumps 20-30% every year.
Yeah, I was going to say. Not pension, but I put money into two different blended portfolios (I didn’t choose the contents, just the two choices from a list). I started it in Feb 2021 and the overall gain has been over 35%. I have no idea what the pension fund put their money into there, but it seems like some bad choices.
OP should check the options they have.
Invest in index funds. They are self- cleaning…IOW when a stock stops performing it is removed from the fund and replaced by a better performer.
Use a brokerage that is low fee. Fees steal your money.
Do NOT let someone manage your money that moves stocks around for fees.
Use Dollar cost averaging . Even if the market is down, keep adding regularly. Which is tied to…
Don’t time the market. You can’t win.
Don’t touch it. Don’t touch your money. Don’t incur fees and capital gains taxes. You will lose. Leave it alone.
I am up 8% average yearly over the lifetime of my fund including all the downturns, it has been stellar this year well over 12%. Is this a “get rich quick” way of doing things? Is it exciting? No. Not at all. But it works.
Investing (NOT TRADING) is EasyHard, because it’s really easy to do, but really hard not to mess with and screw it up.
don’t touch it
Don’t even look at it on a regular basis. Looking at it makes some people do self-defeating things like breaking your other great points
But every sector has been ravaged by the stock market changes.
You just don’t know what you’re talking about. The S&P 500 is up like 25% over the same period. You’re just buying into specific sectors. Don’t do that. Buy market index funds or target date funds and stop trying to actively manage your retirement account. Also, you haven’t lost anything in value because you haven’t realized the losses by cashing out. It’s better for you currently if things are a lower price because you’re buying them at a discount.
JFC. Just buy a target date fund. This post makes it clear that you don’t really know what your’re doing so please do yourself a favor and just pick a target date fund like this (or equivalent if Vanguard funds aren’t available to you) and don’t mess with it until retirement.
If you want to take the time to learn more about what you should probably be doing, here are some resources:
I’ve done plenty of research and invested in a 3 fund portfolio that my financial advisor suggested. My 401k for work is a fidelity 2050 target date fund. Why so rude?
How did you manage to lose money on a 3 fund portfolio, if one of its strengths is that it never underperforms the market?
Something doesn’t add up. Sounds and looks like you gambled first and then went with a solid investment.
Maybe it’s time to think about the capabilities of your financial advisor. Is it a friend or a professional?
If your portfolio was a Fidelity target date fund, it would not be impacted by the local industry you mention in your post.
I also happen to know more about the details of how our retirement fund recommendations to clients works at Fidelity… because I worked there for the last 5 years.
You are showing the results of poor selection on your part.
He’s being “rude” because you’re losing faith in your fund for no reason. Thankfully you have a financial advisor. The problem is not US retirement plans, the problem is it’s only been a few years. If the target date is 2050 then assuming capitalism doesn’t collapse entirely, you’ll be fine. Look at it on the larger time scale that it is. A few bad years is normal fluctuation.
Because you’ve come to the conclusion that “retirement in the US is a scam” evidently based on a few years of data in just your portfolio. Retirement savings is built over decades.
I’d be curious about your specific positions contributing to this graph.
Don’t worry, the money is not gone. It is just with someone else, probably one of the billionaires.
Stop investing in specific industries.
For real. My 401k went from 40k to 85k in the same time period as OP.
