Are you selling anything right now?

[jlt19]

I have a bunch of different funds with money in them for different things. Efund, kids savings, etc. I rarely look at my front page anymore, just my stocks I actively trade. I looked today though and noticed my largest fund is up 32%. It's a large cap index fund and I just don't understand how the market is so good right now. I feel like it's got to take another hit soon, right?

I'm thinking of selling (whatever day a similar etf is up) and just holding it until one of those crazy tank days and then rebuying in.

I know it's a lot of "work" but I do enjoy this stuff so I'm not worried about that. I'm also not overly concerned about taxes either.

Are you actively trading in this crazy market?

[Cappy]

I'm not but I feel the same way about the market.

[flygirl]

I have not, but I thought about doing this as well. I have a certain stock at a record high and I kind of want to sell and rebuy when it drops $75 per share like it had and maybe could do again.

[goldengirlz]

I’ve said on CEP numerous times that I think the market is behaving completely irrationally. It seems to be totally divorced from what’s happening with the labor market. And while I suppose rich people and institutional investors can prop up share prices for a little while, eventually we’ll need to reckon with record unemployment and a coming eviction crisis.

For a better indicator of what the market should be doing, I like to watch the FTSE 100. It’s more like tempered enthusiasm rather than irrational exuberance.

ALLLLL that said, I don’t think short-term day-trading will make much of a difference over a long investment horizon. If you’re planning to hold these stocks for a decade or more, the market will likely rebound anyway (if history is any indicator) and it’ll be a blip.

The only exception is if you’re planning to make a large, near-term purchase. THAT would make me nervous. Or if you’re holding onto cash and planning to invest, it might make sense to just wait.

[jlt19]

Aug 14, 2020 9:21:53 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

I’ve said on CEP numerous times that I think the market is behaving completely irrationally. It seems to be totally divorced from what’s happening with the labor market. And while I suppose rich people and institutional investors can prop up share prices for a little while, eventually we’ll need to reckon with record unemployment and a coming eviction crisis.

For a better indicator of what the market should be doing, I like to watch the FTSE 100. It’s more like tempered enthusiasm rather than irrational exuberance.

ALLLLL that said, I don’t think short-term day-trading will make much of a difference over a long investment horizon. If you’re planning to hold these stocks for a decade or more, the market will likely rebound anyway (if history is any indicator) and it’ll be a blip.

The only exception is if you’re planning to make a large, near-term purchase. THAT would make me nervous. Or if you’re holding onto cash and planning to invest, it might make sense to just wait.

That's why I'm so unsure. I'm obviously not touching our 529s, IRAs or 401ks. But it's the "other" money I'm not sure what to do.

DS/DD savings: they're 8/10 and it's for things like a car or graduation gift, or house dp. Just a typical savings for big things. Up 15%/18% respectively. Guessing I should hold on to them.

We have our efund in two different funds, up 32% and 14%. I have no clue if we'll need them any time soon, ya know? Hopefully not of course.

Basically it's the 32% one that has me seriously considering it. But of course it's the one I don't know if/when we'll need it!

[goldengirlz]

Aug 14, 2020 9:32:51 GMT -5 jlt19 said:

Aug 14, 2020 9:21:53 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

I’ve said on CEP numerous times that I think the market is behaving completely irrationally. It seems to be totally divorced from what’s happening with the labor market. And while I suppose rich people and institutional investors can prop up share prices for a little while, eventually we’ll need to reckon with record unemployment and a coming eviction crisis.

For a better indicator of what the market should be doing, I like to watch the FTSE 100. It’s more like tempered enthusiasm rather than irrational exuberance.

ALLLLL that said, I don’t think short-term day-trading will make much of a difference over a long investment horizon. If you’re planning to hold these stocks for a decade or more, the market will likely rebound anyway (if history is any indicator) and it’ll be a blip.

The only exception is if you’re planning to make a large, near-term purchase. THAT would make me nervous. Or if you’re holding onto cash and planning to invest, it might make sense to just wait.

That's why I'm so unsure. I'm obviously not touching our 529s, IRAs or 401ks. But it's the "other" money I'm not sure what to do.

DS/DD savings: they're 8/10 and it's for things like a car or graduation gift, or house dp. Just a typical savings for big things. Up 15%/18% respectively. Guessing I should hold on to them.

We have our efund in two different funds, up 32% and 14%. I have no clue if we'll need them any time soon, ya know? Hopefully not of course.

Basically it's the 32% one that has me seriously considering it. But of course it's the one I don't know if/when we'll need it!

For something 7+ years down the road, personally I would hold. But yeah, I can see not wanting an e-fund in stock. Things are so crazy right now.

[goldengirlz]

Thinking about this some more, and doing some crude number crunching on a calculator, I think it’s true that IF you time the market correctly, it could be lucrative to sell and rebuy.

But you’d be making certain assumptions:
-You’re selling at the top
-There will be a steep enough drop to offset capital gains tax (and any commissions, if applicable)
-You’ll know exactly when to buy back in and you’ll buy at the bottom

That’s where the math gets tricky and why people say you can’t time the market.

(I’ve been talking about a market crash for months now and share prices have only improved. I did correctly predict the earlier market drop, but if I had sold back in February, I probably would NOT have bought during the March dip because I would not have expected to see this crazy recovery; I definitely did not think it would be over so quickly. So if I sold now hoping to make a quick few bucks, I’d be afraid of missing my window again. That’s why I very much prefer dollar cost averaging and investing a set amount each month.)

[sandandsea]

I’m not but I feel the same way. However it seems whenever I sell, the market inevitably goes up more so i feel stuck. And I told DH that if we sell that I’d want to diversify more and wouldnt buy back what we sell so we are at a standstill and letting it ride.

[sillygoosegirl]

We sold our Tesla stock when it hit $1200... oops...

[sandandsea]

Aug 14, 2020 14:17:44 GMT -5 Stan said:

Aug 14, 2020 13:26:56 GMT -5 sillygoosegirl said:

We sold our Tesla stock when it hit $1200... oops...

I am holding mine. It's very tempting sometimes since I bought at $235 but I'm riding it out, the roller coaster is fun and I don't have a ton of shares. 

Haha. Your fun is my stressful.

[lust2hart]

Aug 14, 2020 14:17:44 GMT -5 Stan said:

Aug 14, 2020 13:26:56 GMT -5 sillygoosegirl said:

We sold our Tesla stock when it hit $1200... oops...

I am holding mine. It's very tempting sometimes since I bought at $235 but I'm riding it out, the roller coaster is fun and I don't have a ton of shares. 

Same - we bought at $160. We have a whopping 5 shares, LOL. DH just told me that they're planning to split the stocks later this year. 

[ny96]

We have 7 shares of Tesla we bought at $700. I'm having fun with it.

[farmvillelover]

I'm not actively trading but between last week and this week I've sold off roughly 25% of our equity positions. Half of them were SP500 index funds and half were tech heavy funds, all in retirement accounts. Waiting a bit and deciding what to do. We were previously about 98% in equities (outside of our plain cash savings at Capital One), so I feel better about taking some off the table.

Maybe this is timing the market. I consider it re evaluating our asset allocation given our ages (43 and 44).

[lust2hart]

Aug 20, 2020 15:25:51 GMT -5 lust2hart said:

Aug 14, 2020 14:17:44 GMT -5 Stan said:

I am holding mine. It's very tempting sometimes since I bought at $235 but I'm riding it out, the roller coaster is fun and I don't have a ton of shares. 

Same - we bought at $160. We have a whopping 5 shares, LOL. DH just told me that they're planning to split the stocks later this year. 

Stan , ny96, did you see that the stocks split today? We now have 25 shares at $500 each - not too bad after putting in less than a grand! 

[dr.girlfriend]

Sept 1, 2020 19:24:11 GMT -5 Stan said:

Aug 31, 2020 15:09:46 GMT -5 lust2hart said:

Stan , ny96 , did you see that the stocks split today? We now have 25 shares at $500 each - not too bad after putting in less than a grand! 

Oh yeah, I've been ready for it! People are crazy for it. 

Oh, wow, I bought Tesla a while ago but stopped looking at it when Elon Musk started opening his big mouth all the time and making me cringe.  Time to check up!

Hmmm...looks like I bought TSLA with my husband's Roth "fun money."  On the bright side, my Apple stock is up 556%.  Don't know that I would have considered it ethical to buy knowing what I know now, but investment-wise it's a big winner.

Update:  I checked and it's just a hair shy of up 800%.  Dayum.  NOW I'm thinking of selling!

[jlt19]

Update of sorts to this, I did end up selling a lot on 8/24 because I felt like it was a good day. I could have gone a few more days, but I'm happy with that decision. I then bought back in a bit on 9/8 when things were back down below what I sold for, so I'm pleased with myself. For now, lol. Taxes will be a nightmare with the washes but Fidelity seems to make things pretty easy in this regards.

Regarding big stocks, I had dinner with my friend that is a global manager at Amazon the other night. So much of their salary is stock based and I would imagine it's super hard to not want to sell a bunch right now! But she did just get a massive"raise" since they let her go 100% remote and she moved from Seattle back home to STL with no salary deduction.

[SusanBAnthony]

My dad did this with his 401k when trump was elected. After watching the run up of the previous ~8 years he was convinced the market would tank. So he pulled it all and put it in bonds or something.

Now he is in his 60's so that probably reasonable anyway but he would have been way better off not trying to time the market (his intention was timing the market not asset allocation).

Luckily my mom doesn't even remember her password lol and hers is just left alone in S&P500 so they balance out.