Has anyone's 401k been slumping recently? In the past week mine has been dropping. My year to date change is -3.2%. The precentage has been getting larger in the wrong direction.

I know I have a long time to wait it out, and eventually it should recover but just curious if anyone else is having the same thing occur with their 401 k account?

 

i was slumping too. check this thread out:
https://acurazine.com/forums/money-investing-17/401k-help-380346/

 

I would imagine that the vast majority of people's 401k are in the red year to date. Have you seen the market since jan 1? Make sure your 401k is diversified and keep contributing. You are at the age where you should be happy that you get to buy on the cheap.

 

My last 2-3 contributions have been 80% bonds, so I'll get a steady return with those. Once the market picks up then I'll change my contributions

 

Man that sucks, mine was dropping until i redistributed some of my assets into international securities and now I'm back in the black but just barely. Like Wu-Tang financial says, "You gotta diversify your shit"

 

meh

 

You should have seen mine back in 2001 or so.... Back then the only way my IRA went up was when I put in my yearly contribution...

It's all about the long term... every 7-10 years there's a big slump for a year, then the other 6-9 years you make up for it...

The last big slump was... ah... about 7 years ago... right on time

On my IRA, I'm back to where I was 2 months ago... No big deal. I evaluate things by the year, not by weeks or months. Once a year I re-evaluate my investments, and cut loose the ones that are dogging it for the past year or more. I never make adjustments to the portfolio based on weeks or months worth of performance (or lack thereof)...

I actually don't even look at my 401K except for the quarterly statement...

 

 

Diversification and differing investments means that some of us have losses and some of us have gains; my accounts (two 401Ks) are something like +2% and -1% from year-ago, not counting the money my employers put in (free money ).

FWIW, I remember in 2003 when several people were talking about their 15% losses in value of their 401Ks for 2002; I think their accounts then gained 30%+ in the next couple of years thereafter...

 

3.2% loss is big to some, not a big deal for others. Assuming your age right now and the age you have until retirement, you should be at least in a Moderate-Aggressive to Aggressive portfolio. 3.2% loss in these types of portfolios is nothing if you are a true mod-agg / agg investor. Time is on your side, so you should be getting aggressive with your portfolio. Keep contributing, at least to your company's match, so you can take advantage of the down market and reduce your dollar-cost-average for your entire portfolio.

In this case, go to morningstar.com at least and take a risk assessment test to see where your comfort level with regards to investing is at. If you get upset by a 3-4% loss, you're a conservative investor but remember this.......you can always make more money but you'll never be able to make more time.



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I seem to contribute a ton more then I get back in returns. So I'm never in the red for the year.
I mixed up my 401K 3 times in the last 2 years. Changing investments.
I'm going to get more aggressive I think. Put more in high risk but high returns for a little while & see how that goes.

 

Except I look maybe monthly. Usually don't make any changes unless there is some major drops.

Some quarters you'll make 10% then lag or slide over the next few quarters. It's all about dollar cost averaging unless you're approaching 59 1/2 and about to retire. Seriously, with 30+/- years to go, there is no point in micromanaging your 401(k).

 

Yeah, I'm hurt:

 

^^ small caps FTL in a market like this.

 

Just stick with it and ride it out.