Long story short: recently sold a bunch of real estate, was advised to lump sum my savings into the market instead of DCAing it slowly. Did just that, buying $800k worth of VOO. Been watching it drop ever since. Already down like $40k. Poof, gone. Very distressing. I know this is just probably bad timing, but man it fees really really lousy.
Please talk me off the ledge
byu/BuffaloCannabisCo ininvesting
Posted by BuffaloCannabisCo
46 Comments
What’s your time horizon?
Off the ledge of what? Selling? more buying? Getting chipotle for dinner?
If wars end tomorrow you’ll be a genius. Nobody can predict.
It is NOT “poof, gone” until you do something. If you lock in the loss, then yeah otherwise you’re on for the ride.
Poof, not gone. Not gone unless you sell.
It’s not gone… you still own the stock. Stop watching it every day. The market is gonna market but in 5-10 years you’ll be fine.
You are down 5%. You have a 14 year horizon.
If this causes you stress, you should not be in the market. Buy bonds or something.
If 5% makes you feel that way, my suggestion would be don’t invest
No ledge talking needed, other than don’t buy his and sell low.
Stop looking at the price and walk away for a while.
Trading emotionally is the worst thing you can do, so stop checking the balance, you’re investing for the long term, right? Fluctuations will be wild and happen regularly but over a long enough time horizon, when you zoom out the trend if always up and to the right.
Sell a bit to harvest the tax loss, but other than that stay the course. If you’ve got more money, now is the time to buy.
That’s only 5%
That’s a pullback. It’s normal. It may stay down for a while but eventually will go back up.
You have lots of time.
Zoom out and look at the bumps within the last 5 years
Meet Bob. Bob is the world’s worst market timer.
What follows is Bob’s tale of terrible timing of his stock purchases.
https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2014/02/worlds-worst-market-timer/
Jumping ship now makes all future gains go *poof* even harder.
Poof gone? It’s not gone at all. It’s not different if you kept it in real estate. It would also be poof gone if you were able to track day to day prices of your real estate. They to go down and sometime a lot more.
I am the ledge. Get off of me. You’re hurting my back.
Here’s the story of Bob, the world’s worst market timer.
[https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2014/02/worlds-worst-market-timer/](https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2014/02/worlds-worst-market-timer/)
first day? You can expect it to go down 20% but that’s ok lol, just hold.
We will have a long decline down imo. Oil prices will keep rising while our economy takes a beating. This is the secular end of our business cycle and we will face a recession. Just the natural cyclical state of the market. Sorry you got in at the wrong time.
Lump sum beats DCA
If you put it in the market, you have to resolve not to touch it for a long time. You bought the most recent top, im afraid. However, on a long enough timeline, green line go up.
You know when the market recovers that money comes back
Pffft. Thats not bad. Don’t sweat it.
Just look at a chart of VOO over the past x number of years buddy.
Look at it again in 20 years, not until then.
Real estate goes up and down too, it’s just more difficult to track exact gains and losses until you get a property valuation or sell.
Just like real estate, you only gain or lose if you sell the stock. Value tends to trend upwards over time, just wait it out unless you’re planning to retire soon.
What’s your investing time horizon? It’s not “poof gone” until you sell and lock in. If you have 15+ years til retirement, just hold out. In nearly all scenarios those that held through troubled waters on index funds matched or beat the market over time.
Sell all. Have peace of mind and a Diet Coke and never have to post something like this again.
I honestly worry for you. Down 5% is nothing. What happens if we’re down 50%, are you actually going to be able to hold through that?
press the button on the chart that says 5Y
Market is in a bubble at all time highs. I would’ve DCA’d.
SAFE AND SOUND….YOU SHOULD HAVE JUST PUT IT IN A HYSA….NO STRESS
Well it comes back over time. Sometimes quickly sometimes slowly. Its a shock to the system but I really would not worry it too much.
..yeah, that’s the reason why DCAing is the recommended path.
Maybe a good way to view this is to go and look at e.g. the SPY chart for the last 20 years. Do some napkin math (if I had bought here? .. here?) and realize that volatility is part of the game. The spikes are distractions, the underlying trend tends to win. It feels better when you gain 4% in a day.
It is bad timing. Just search for a graph of the history of the S&P 500, then stop worrying.
Do a back flip
You’re fine lol just keep holding. Everything will be okay
And this right here is why the advice folks give here of 100% VOO isnt right for everyone
You’re fine. That’s a safe investment. If that goes to 0 we have bigger problems to deal with
Research shows lump sum beats dca
Easy… don’t sell now
Tell me about it
I’m down a lot too
But that why you sell covered calls
Don’ look!
If it makes you feel any better if you had invested at the peak before every market crash you’d still be up today. Just give it some time.
Listen, VOO is gonna recover, it may take a couple of weeks, it may take a whole year, but it’s gonna recover.
Your best course of action is to let it pass. If you sell now, you’ll be losing 40k. Yes, tomorrow those 40k will be 60k and maybe worse.
I put a much minor sum into gold when USA bombarded IRAN and right now I am at -10% loss, and…I am just gonna leave it as long as it takes for it to recover.
I thought the basic rule of thumb was NEVER EVER put all your eggs into one basket, so you cut off one thumb) and NEVER EVER do lump sums
So you basically cut off both your thumbs.
Take the loss and pull it back into a HYSA and do it the right way.
We’re almost through the worst. Once the war is over and J Pow is out, the market will go back up.
I feel you. In last 5 years or so, every time i put a bunch of money in, the market drop by more than 20%. Ukrain war, trump tarrif, and whatnot. But I hang in there and I am still up 50% for that period. So, do nothing and don’t look at it every day.