Damn, 401K still down 6%. Who else feels my pain?

4/17/2008 9:42:25 AM

-3.22%

wakka wakka

4/17/2008 10:00:52 AM

Ah well. At least I'm beating the indices.

4/17/2008 10:04:51 AM

-(I dont even want to think about it) I've made some bad investments including a bad one in grmn at about ~60.

4/17/2008 11:30:45 AM

...and in other news, GOOG posts good results and jumps $76.50/share (17%) in after hours trading.

Damn.

4/17/2008 7:22:01 PM

From page 21

Quote :

"statehockey8 All American 595 Posts user info edit post GOOG starting to look attractive again 4/14/2008 6:40:52 PM"

4/17/2008 9:15:16 PM

i might be positive in my 401k after today :x itll be close.

4/18/2008 12:32:55 PM

Quote :

"+2.61%"

4/18/2008 1:47:32 PM

Apple stock has been doing well lately.

4/18/2008 2:09:43 PM

It has? Excellent!

4/18/2008 2:42:44 PM

V is teasing me!

4/18/2008 3:23:09 PM

Mmmmmm V

4/18/2008 5:53:38 PM

^^^Bought in about two months ago and it's up about 15%

4/18/2008 8:53:06 PM

i almost sold my apple at 170ish and also wanted to buy more at 120ish.. god i wish i would have now

oh well, so does everyone else i suppose

4/19/2008 12:06:26 AM

Me toooooo. How much apple do you have?

4/19/2008 7:56:39 AM

~30 shares

[Edited on April 19, 2008 at 10:08 AM. Reason : nothing too spectacular but a decent chunk of change]

4/19/2008 10:08:31 AM

I have about 17, how long have you had it for?

Who do you trade through? I use ameritrade.

4/19/2008 12:51:06 PM

POT reports earnings thurs, i might try to ride up until earnings
MOS blew their numbers away

4/20/2008 1:29:27 AM

Quote :

"I have about 17, how long have you had it for? Who do you trade through? I use ameritrade."

bout a year or a little more I think?

and it's some shit through bank of america... I need to start using somebody else but they make it easy as hell with no minimum balances so i started using them (i think its $10 a trade tho) and just haven't ever changed

4/20/2008 3:36:23 AM

^ National Financial Services?

4/20/2008 9:38:47 AM

Apple stock up 3.05 so far.

Any reason why?

4/21/2008 10:16:32 AM

https://www.baisidirect.com/

4/21/2008 10:17:50 AM

^^

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/AFX-0013-24595887.htm

4/21/2008 10:38:51 AM

Go V go!

4/21/2008 12:22:12 PM

Meredith is back and she says Citi may cut its dividend to zero

Quote :

" An Oppenheimer & Co. analyst said Monday Citigroup Inc. may have to slash or even eliminate its dividend as the bank struggles with massive losses on certain kinds of investments. Oppenheimer analyst Meredith Whitney said Citigroup faces "seriously constrained earnings" because of the turmoil in capital markets and the pinched consumer. She expects Citigroup, which has lost $15 billion in the past six months, to lose money this year. With the bank's profit under duress, Whitney said it may be tough for the company to pay its dividend. Citigroup this year cut its quarterly dividend to 32 cents from 54 cents. The company also sold $7.5 billion of stock to Abu Dhabi and a $12.5 billion stake in itself to investors including Singapore, Kuwait, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, and the state of New Jersey. Whitney said the bank may have to cut its dividend again, or eliminate it entirely, to preserve cash. Citigroup's stock slipped 87 cents, or 3.5 percent, to $24.24 in morning trading Monday. The shares are down 17 percent in 2008 and 53 percent in the past year."

She was right on the money twice last year and because I know it will be appreciated on TWW she is


If Citi cuts to zero, there will be significant pressure for other banks to cut. There is a chance Larry Summers and other economists will testify that dividends need to be cut to preserve lending ability. This brings us to a second type of financial "crisis" where we may see plunging share values on huge cuts industry wide.

4/21/2008 12:47:20 PM

OK I know I've been talking about Apple, but would anyone say buy, hold, or sell on this stock. Just curious as to see what others think.

4/21/2008 3:25:49 PM

I'm trying to decide if I should swoop in and grab some NCC. It's down ~28%.

4/21/2008 3:27:28 PM

I wouldn't

4/21/2008 3:33:11 PM

That's what I'm thinking now.

4/21/2008 3:34:03 PM

Actually i could see where having a little NCC might do well.

4/21/2008 3:43:54 PM

WSCI Wsi Industries, Inc. +131.4%

4/21/2008 3:44:21 PM

I think I might just short a few shares of XLF and either do covered calls or just unload it when the financials recover from today.

4/21/2008 3:48:45 PM

GOOG is going up up up...too bad I don't have any shares anymore.

4/22/2008 11:54:09 AM

damn why did apple swing so low and recover so quickly

4/22/2008 11:58:59 AM

so i just started my 401k w/my company and i'm pretty much new at investing. we have the conservative-moderate-aggressive pre-built portfolio options, or we can pick and choose funds & stuff to build our own. i'd really rather use one of the premade packages.

i'm wondering if, since the economy is down and all, should i go aggressive right off the bat? it seems like i could get some solid stocks while they're down and ride them back up, then back off to moderate in a few years or so. otherwise i'll just put my max matching % into the moderate each month and settle in for 40 years. what does the brain trust think?

VV i'm almost 23. so aggressive is still like a (relatively) short-term thing though right? as in, i'd want to move to more conservative stuff in like 10-15 years?

[Edited on April 22, 2008 at 8:20 PM. Reason : .]

4/22/2008 8:06:26 PM

VMW up 15% after hours.

4/22/2008 8:07:12 PM

^^ you should go aggressive not because the markets down but because, i'm guessing, you are young (20s or early 30s) and can afford to be more aggressive as you have a long time to ride out the ups and downs of the market before you'll be withdrawing your 401k money

4/22/2008 8:09:38 PM

^^^^The next time AAPL hits the 170ish mark I'm selling.

4/22/2008 9:09:11 PM

Yeah, I'm thinking about it, or at least selling some of it for now.

4/22/2008 9:13:00 PM

^5

if you go with the pre-packaged, go with the aggressive one until at LEAST mid-30s (and likely later than that)

also, the 401k by itself probably won't be enough...might wanna start thinking about other vehicles for investing along with it.

4/22/2008 10:09:58 PM

Agreed. Get a roth ira too.

4/22/2008 11:17:14 PM

the Roth IRA is awesome...max it out while you can

4/23/2008 9:43:54 AM

I'll third that.

4/23/2008 10:46:12 AM

^x4

is it really worth it unless you are maxing out your 401k? im not questioning you out of disbelief, im asking because I dont know. Im putting 20% into my 401k with company match at 6%. Im putting 8.5% into a regular savings account for a house down payment in a few years plus general safety savings.

unless i backed money out of my 401k or other savings, i dont have a significant amount to be putting into a roth ira (if my student loans didnt exist then i would). and i dont see the benefit of putting less money in my 401k just to put it in a roth.

and the person you responded to said they were only putting in max match percentage, which probably means hes investing like 5% or so into his 401k. would he really benefit more from opening a roth? why wouldnt you just suggest for him to put more into his 401k first?

4/23/2008 11:06:06 AM

You would benefit more from the roth. Put in as much as your company will match in your 401k but, after that I think you will be better off in a roth. When you retire you wont have to pay income tax on what you withdraw from the roth!

4/23/2008 11:28:50 AM

^agreed

4/23/2008 11:39:32 AM

i guess thats better than paying tax on the money coming into your paycheck before you can put it in your roth because youre paying taxes on it before it has accrued any gain? whereas its tax free to contribute to your 401k but then you pay your taxes on it on the way out which is a larger sum? or what

4/23/2008 11:44:35 AM

and a higher tax basis in the future

4/23/2008 12:03:40 PM

hadn't really thought of it like that. although i doubt putting 20% into my 401k is really bad, but i guess just putting some in the roth ira would be better.

if my friend moves in with me and my rent gets cut in half (saving me like 400 bucks) maybe ill look into dumping that money into a roth, but i was planning on putting more of it towards student loans :/

4/23/2008 12:17:08 PM

thanks for the responses.

i put in 10% - company matches max 50% of that - so 401k gets 10 + 5 = 15% each month

i've planned to start a roth ira, btw. i've just got to figure out who to get it through.



here's another question: i'd like to buy a house in the next 3-4 years (shooting for 10% downpayment, probably 150k-170k house price range). whats the best type of account to open to save for that? just a high-yield savings, or a CD or money-market acct? something else?

[Edited on April 23, 2008 at 12:44 PM. Reason : %]

4/23/2008 12:43:50 PM